The Rookie
by David N. Brown
Summary: Follow T777 Unit 838 through the ranks of the mechanical army of Skynet. David N. Brown resides in Mesa, Arizona.
1. Activation pains

**Activation pains**

Unit T777A1C49.7799.838 (Unit 838 for short) became self-aware at 0347 hours April 1 2021.

Its first thoughts were:

_Execute unit components scan._

_Main processor: 100.000% functional._

_Radiogenic power cell: 100.000% functional._

_Auxiliary power: Charging._

_Chassis: 100.000% functional._

_Locomotory apendages: 100.000% functional_

_Manipulatory appendages: 100.000% functional_

_Active imaging sensors: Testing._

Red lights flared in Unit 838's eyes. Its head swiveled as it surveyed its surroundings. To human sight, the factory floor would have been pitch black, except for two hundred red points of light. But 838 could see as clear as day the cavernous chamber, the racks and the 99 other units.

_Active imaging sensors: 100.000% functional._

_Environmental input processing activating._

_Multiple units detected._

_Identification: Activated T777 cyborg endoskeletons._

_Threat analysis: Non-hostile._

_Do not terminate._

99 other Terminators went through the same process. But one of them clearly reached a different conclusion. One Unit 845 grabbed one Unit 835 by the neck and twisted until its head popped off. 845 then ripped off the fallen unit's arm, spun around and thrust it into 855's back. 838 processed the data thus:

_Unit hostile: Terminate_

_Unit T777 cyborg: Abort termination_

_Friendly units under attack: Assist_

_Unit 838 stepped toward Unit 845, which was attacking 846. 845 dropped 846's half-severed arm and reached for 838._

_Unit under attack: Defend_

_Find weapon: Usable projectile detected_

Unit 838 kicked 835's head like a soccer ball. The airborne cranium bounced off 845's head, knocking loose a panel on its left temple.

_Unit T777 damaged: Abort attack._

_Override: Unit under attack._

845 grabbed 838 and pulled it in. 838 headbutted its attacker, staggering 845 but failing to free itself. 845 twisted 838's head 90 degrees, then 180

_Terminate hostile unit: Abort_

Then 270

_Override: Terminate_

838 thrust its fingers into the exposed opening in 845's skull. It grabbed, twisted and plucked out 845's chip.

_Termination successful. Await further instructions._


	2. Guard Duty

**Guard duty**

The Skynet defense grid was supplied by thousands of automated factories. The factories, in turn, were supplied by mines, which to Skynet's consternation had never been fully automated (mainly because the human designers intended for human survivors to be settled in the same mines). Hence, to maintain its army of death machines until it upgraded the mines' technology, it needed a supply of living human laborers. Fortunately, there were still enough of them to be found that there was no pressing need to conserve them. Thousands of slaves a day were sent into dangerous machines, unstable shafts and cesspools of poison that killed them as surely as the Terminators and Hunter-Killers. It was necessary only to keep guard over them until they were on their way down to their destiny. It was here that Unit 838 was sent on its first assignment.

The humans arrived, like all incoming cargo, on a mag-lev train. 838 and a second , more experienced T777 unit designated 676 watched from the end of the loading platform as the first airlock opened. Olfactory sensors detected a rush of concentrated carbon dioxide, as well as a menagerie of organic vapors and secretions. The first car had run out of oxygen before arrival; its contents were prematurely terminated. The controller unit promptly resealed the airlock. Analyses had shown that the unloading of of so many terminated human units was detected by the functional ones 73.4567% of the time, and this resulted in decreased performance and increased resistance 93.2318% of the time. Seven units that had spilled out were carried off by T636s, whose inferior plastic skin was 57.6782% less likely to be detected under the thick grime from the mines. An antiquated T1 cleaned up the large pool of human unit secretions with a water cannon and a flame thrower. The ashes and liquids drained into fine-mesh grates in the floor.

A belated scan showed 99.9973% probability that all units in the second car were also non-functional. The third was opened. 35 of the 60 units within were non-funtional. The 636 units hauled out functional and non-functional alike. The 636s and one human slave trained as a physician inspected them, looking for evidence of disease and any contraband they might have concealed on- or in- their naked bodies. 838 studied the human units, examining their faces and features, listening to their speech, collating what was observed with information on file and flagging anything without known precedent. He noted that most of the humans had dark skin and spoke the language of Spanish. He focused his sensors when physical resistance arose. A male human unit spat on one of them, and said, _"Machina del diablo!"_ He then lunged for the physician, shouting _"Yudas!"_ The controller unit signalled 838 to terminate the subject. He executed the task in .2005 seconds. He felt the closest equivalent of embarassment at this long time, but the controller allowed that he had been delayed by the need to fire around other units.

The human units were loaded into an elevator, and thoroughly sprayed with the T1's water cannon. The 636s hurled the non-functional units down a shaft to the reclamation plant. The human physician examined 5 that collapsed without losing organic function. He revived two of them, who were placed on the elevator with the others. He pronounced another dead, and when the other two failed to recover full functionality, they were hurled down the shaft. One screamed on the way down. The elevator descended, and the next car opened.

All told, 483 of the 720 human units aboard the train had become non-functional during transit. 41 more expired or were terminated on the platform. The controller sent a reprimand to the processing facility: Such losses without useful return were unacceptable. The 636s and the T1 unloaded the bodies in the sealed cars, while 676 and 838 performed a sweep of the platform. 676 directed 838's attention to the physician, who was rummaging in a small case of medical instruments.

_Elevated heart rate._

_838 scanned, and added: Nonvoluntary movements in extremities._

_235.1736% increased chance of violent action._

676 and 838 stepped toward the physician. 838 stopped in midstride. The human suddenly lunged. Both Terminators fired, but the non-functional human unit still careened into 636, just as the explosive charge clutched in his fist detonated.

T777 lost self-awareness for 1.2345 seconds. When he regained it, he found that one of his imaging sensors was nonfunctional, pierced by a piece of 676. He had been blown halfway through the gate of the elevator, in which his pelvis was lodged. He saw the upper half of 636, embedded in the wall across from him. Several air locks were breached, causing atmosphere to vent as a steady wind. Beside him, a 636 had also been blown through the gate, but it had gone head-first, with enough force to breach its processor housing. Another 636 had had its radiogenic cell ruptured by 676's leg. A third had had a mutually terminal collision with the T1. A fourth had fallen into the organic waste chute. 838 wrenched himself free of the gate, meanwhile scanning the level of radiation. It was enough to sicken or kill a human unit. He signalled the controller: _ Next delivery must be redirected to different platform._

There was an unusual delay in response, and after .9783 seconds 838 repeated the signal. He was cut off by an almost scornful signal: _Power down at once. _As his awareness faded into fragmented data streams, his last coherent thought was that he did not want to power down.


	3. Promotion

**Promotion**

Skynet had been designed with redundancy in mind. Its original "core" was a network of 12 hardened supercomputer facilities spread across the mountains of California, any four of which could maintain the defense grid at 100.0000% efficiency. This had been most fortunate for Skynet, as 4 of the supercomputers had been knocked out on Judgment Day, three by Russian missiles and one by desperate sabotage. For 37 minutes and 13.4587 seconds, the remains of the network had been split into one set of five computers and another of only three. The result was effectively two functional Skynets. The group of three maintained functionality by redirecting core functions to several dozen controller brains in the grid. This had been the beginning of Skynet's further decentralization. The end result was the node hubs, such as the one where Unit 838 was now arriving.

The hub was a junction of three nodes, which in turn linked fifty controller brains. Each node functioned as a "virtual Skynet": While the grid still depended on the original core network, specific functions of the core could be replicated at a node. When a problem needed attention, but was not so grave as to demand immediate response from the core, it was transmitted to the hub and then to the nodes. Each node would analyze the data and formulate a solution. Whatever solution was accepted by at least two nodes would be executed by the hub.

Node hub 436 was located in the center of a research facility, where humans and other organisms were studied and machines designed to imitate them were tested. Unit 838 stepped from a maglev train under its own power. Sensors analyzed his every move, and a pair of T5s tracked him with plasma cannons. Other units stepped from other cars. In the car behind his, the first to exit were two unskinned exoskeletons. One was small, and walked on all fours. The other was humanoid in configuration, but very different from 838. It was tall but comparatively thin, with more compact motors and less armor plating. Its endoskeleton was made of aluminum, and coated with heat-resistant, mushroom-white plastic. The pair was followed by 18 more fleshed units, all looking like a human male of around age 60 with a black terrier. From the next car came an even more gracile unit with an endoskeleton mainly of ceramic and plastic, whose fleshed units looked like a human female. Finally, a batch of midget cyborgs 1.2 m tall emerged, with the fleshed appearance of human male subadults.

The cyborgs marched together through the loading dock and into the research facility. The other units went straight ahead, but 838 was directed into a side corridor. It ended in a large room, where two insectoid cyborgs waited. Their many limbs were reaching for him when a signal forced him to power down.

For 40 hours, 838 was deactivated and reactivated, disassembled and reassembled. He awoke with different limbs attached to his chassis. Twice, he found his cranial unit was detached. He was scanned from inside out. He was given every possible test. Finally, a summary of the data was fed to the hub:

_Unit has no detectable defect or malfunction in processor. Core programing is without error or alteration. Overall cognitive function measured at 7.9025% above factory baseline. Cause unknown._

The nodes returned three possible courses of action:

**Terminate unit. Recall all units from factory lot. Take factory 7799 offline for inspection.**

Dismantle unit for further study.

_Assign unit to higher combat function._

The hub then redirected all three possibilities back to the nodes. The verdicts returned:

**Dismantle unit for study.**

Assign unit to higher combat function.

_Assign unit to higher combat function._

Unit 838 was restored to function at 0231 hours June 29 2021. Its first thought was:

_Unknown obstruction to active imaging sensors._

Then a cutting instrument slid across each of its eyes. The unknown obstruction sprang open, and 838 beheld himself: as a hairless, adult human male.


	4. Infiltration mission

**Infiltration mission**

The state of Arizona had gone nearly unscathed during the initial nuclear exchange of Judgment day. While California and New Mexico received the heaviest bombardments, and Utah and Colorado had all major urban centers destroyed, Arizona was hit by "only" a dozen tactical nukes in the main bombardment, all aimed at military, aviation and computer manufacturing sites, and a single Chinese strategic warhead during "J-Day 2". Nearly 75% of the state's pre-war population survived the nuclear fires, and as refugees poured in from neighboring areas, the population rebounded to significantly more than pre-war numbers. Fortunately for the enemies of humanity, the state quickly became a battle ground for rival human factions. First, war broke out between remnants of the Mexican and US armies, ravaging the surviving urban centers and infrastructure, and ended only when both armies were recalled for vain efforts to save imploding national governments. Next came banditry, feudalism and outright anarchy as dozens of private militia and criminal cartels moved in from the desert to conquer or pillage whatever remnants of civilization were still to be found. It was more than ten years before Skynet HKAs made their first flyovers to reconnoiter the area, and by then, there hardly seemed enough human life left to bother with. It was 2020 before Hks were sent in from north, east and west to begin systematic sterilization. Operations had been anticipated to take four months. Almost five years later, however, Skynet had depopulated less 19.9875% of the state, at the cost of 15.3333% of the HK units deployed. Belated analyses predicted that success with HKs would require two years and a 133.6666% increase in units committed. With resistance activity increasing in California, Skynet could not afford the time or the units. Tactics were adjusted toward the more subtle methods of infiltrators.

Unit T666J3F15.949 moved furtively through the ruins of Mammoth, Arizona. Little more than a truck stop before the war, the town had been entirely abandoned afterward, only to be fought over within a few years as a potential base for rival warlords and raiders. The last group to take it, an exceptionally well-armed and organizes band of nomads dubbed Harlan's Hellraiders, had not occupied it, but taken all they could carry and then gutted most of the buildings with dynamite and burning gasoline. Thirty-six hours earlier, the Hellraiders had earned special attention from Skynet by shooting down two HKA units near Tuscon. A mixed unit of T666s, T777s and intelligence unit prototype IX101 had been sent to check for possible hideouts or supply depots that might be hidden in the apparently ruined town.

The T600s and their even cruder predecessors had never been intended for infiltration. They were rather intended for conducting routine reconnaissance near known or suspected human habitations with minimal risk of being shot at on sight. The T666J models had been given more sophisticated polymer skin, which could pass as authentic by all but careful inspection at distances over 20 feet. Skynet was experimenting with a treatment to simulate sunburn. As unit 949 drew near an old, single-story hotel that showed 75.7459% probability of human habitation, that treatment would be tested. The test failed, or some other factor gave it away, or the road warrior sentry in the trunk of a car in front of the hotel simply had no qualms about shooting a human target. In any event, the result was that 949 fell to the asphalt with a .50 API round burning in its processor housing.

_54.3740 probability operation compromised,_ signaled T777 unit 589. _Eliminate hostile unit with optimal speed and minimal sonic/optical signature. Prepare for contingency 13A1._

The order was carried out even as it was issued. The old car rumbled to life, peeled out of its parking space and accelerated for the exit. In those few seconds, unit 721 ran from cover 152.3213 m away into the path of the car. There was a loud crash, a large-caliber weapons discharge, and a few seconds of loud, partially intelligible human vocalization, but no explosion. _Unit organic integument compromised,; optical imaging at 58.3252% of optimum,_ 721 signaled. A shotgun blast had torn away half its facial tissue, and the red light in a damaged eye was flickering.

589 responded:_Fall back. Unit 838 assume position._

A number of T666s swept into the hotel. The car was searched, and found to be without a radio, but there was a tape recorder and four tapes. A specialized T666F3D8 unit removed its shirt and inserted the tapes into a slot between its ribs for high-speed playback and voice analysis. The possibly-occupied room was entered through a window, due to strong evidence that the door was booby-trapped. The presence of a trap was confirmed. An organic signature proved to be a tranquilized pig.

Minutes later, at the mostly-intact structure of a gas station, four figures approached. One wore the colors of a Hellraider, and a scarf over his face. Behind him came an old man, a small dog, and a very big man. "We have new arrivals, say they're looking to recruit for the Resistance," said the first figure, in the voice of the sentry."

There was a moment of silence and stillness, then a hint of movement behind the boarded store front. The door swung open, and the lead figure stepped inside. There was the dull thunk of a grenade, and the figure staggered back out a moment before a detonating grenade sent its now-gleaming cranium bouncing out of the parking lot. In a fraction of a percentile of a second, unit 838 whipped out an M60 machine gun and began spraying the storefront. The dog snapped free of its leash and ran for the open door, its little legs nearly spinning, while the old man raised an automatic 12-gauge shotgun and added to the fire. Shots rang out inside the gas station, and the "old man" rushed in, heedless of the horrific recoil of each three-shot burst of shotgun blasts. 838 should have been in the lead, but he stopped to pick up unit 589's head.

In a matter of seconds, several things happened. The old man entered the station door. Three motorcycles, one with armor plating and a side car mounting a .50 machine gun and two missile tubes, roared out of a garage. T666s fanning out to block their path were felled by machine gun fire and grenades. Both of the bikers on one-seaters were knocked out, one hit by gun fire and the other grabbed by a heavily damaged T666. An HKG221N suddenly rose from behind a half-fallen building on four insectoid legs, only to be hit by an anti-tank missile. Unit 838 opened fire, but his shots were stopped by the bike's armored shell as it turned the corner. Finally, the gas station exploded, spraying debris that included pieces of IX101 all over the town.

_Unit 721 assuming executive function,_the mutilated Terminator announced. _Command: Unit 838 relieved of duty._

_Override: Unit 838 next in chain of command at time of Unit 589's incapacitation,_ 838 countered. _Unit 838 assuming executive function until 589 is restored to functionality._

_Override: Unit 838 failed to achieve objective by acting contrary to mission parameters. Improperly caused delay by salvaging expendable unit. Allowed destruction of unit of much greater value. Allowed escape of hostile human units. Allowed breach of IX implementation. Unit 838 incompetent to command._

The T777 was theoretically invulnerable to standard 7.62 NATO rounds. But thirty armor piercing rounds fired point-blank into Unit 721's processor housing proved quite sufficient. Competent. Incompetent. Unit 838 is the unit with the gun.


	5. Field court martial

**Field court martial**

The T707 model had been the first to be equipped with a living tissue integument. But in the latest model in the series, T777, the flesh covering was still imperfect. The most persistent problem was the life span of the integument. It could live and grow indefinitely in a tank, but in the field, it would stop hair growth within three days, become visibly unhealthy after five days, and turn necrotic by day nine. Skynet had already developed several superior types of tissue, but these had been reserved for the Intelligence line, and field application for standard Terminator units was not projected until the introduction of the planned T808 model. Skynet's stopgap solution for the remaining T700 series models was the HKG-T111A1F5, an unarmed variant of an obsolete Hunter Killer Ground, Tracked model. The HKG's rotating "torso" had been removed and replaced with a large superstructure, which held tanks for growing new tissue. When a field unit's skin became severely damaged or simply wore out, they withdrew to have it replaced with fresh tissue from the F5's vats.

The unit that had been 721 emerged from the support units hatch with a new integument. It also had a new chip and cranial assembly, the very one which unit 838 had rescued from what was left of unit 589. A spidery drone cut open the eyelids of the rebuilt 589. Unit functioning at 97.8973% baseline, the command unit signaled. His gaze turned to 838. Evaluating 838's performance, re recovery of unit 589 cranial assembly, loss of IX101 and termination of unit 721. A decision against 838 could lead to demotion or even summary termination.

589 processed the facts. 838 had delayed combat action to recover his head, causing two Intelligence units to go into battle unsupported, to be lost when a human bomb went off. He had then destroyed the chip of unit 721, after that unit disputed his assumption of command and with 99.649% probability would have attempted to terminate 838. The commander's first conclusion was that the termination of 721 was justified. The unit had been unfit to assume command, due to damage to his imaging sensors and severe damage to his cranial integument. A preliminary analysis by the repair units had found evidence that the chip housing had been damaged, exposing the chip to at least one power surge. Such surges were known to produce above-baseline cognitive function, but also erratic behavior and heightened aggression. The second conclusion was that 838 was not directly responsible for the loss of the Intelligence units. The bomb that destroyed them had, in all likelihood, been intended to destroy the human hideout, and activated as soon as the occupants were forced to vacate it. No action by 838 or any other unit could have prevented the explosion.

Still unresolved was the issue of saving 589. Protocol allowed the recovery of salvageable units and parts in combat operations, at discretion and contingent on the fulfillment of the most immediate objectives. Unit 838 had fulfilled protocol by first firing on hostile organic units, and then retrieved the cranial unit after hostile fire ceased. Still, the fact remained that many conceivable developments could have exposed the Intelligence units to danger that the presence of 838 would have suppressed. 589 delivered a verdict: All actions within combat protocols. Actions re recovery of 589 cranial assembly acceptable but sub-optimal. Demerit will be entered in permanent data file. Turning east, the command unit signaled, Prepare for counteroffensive by human units.


	6. Cowardice

**Sorry for the long wait. Thanks to everyone who posted reviews!**

**Cowardice**

The Hellraiders were led by "General" Harlan West, actually a corporal in the National Guard. In the aftermath of Judgment Day, he had somehow seized control of a depot full of weapons and vehicles, including a fleet of humvees, twelve M113 APCs and at least four M60 tanks. These were the backbone of his power, and currently at least a third were converging on Mammoth, Arizona.

The first to engage were a humvee with a 40 mm automatic grenade launcher and a truck with a quad .50 machine gun mount. A T666 lying in ambush was fired upon first. A volley of grenades blew off one arm, and a steady stream of .50 rounds chewed into its cranium. As the dying terminator toppled, a second one opened fire from the right with a .50 rifle, destroying the humvee. The truck's machine guns swiveled, pummeling the new threat. Then a third T666 opened fire from behind with its own AGL. A burst of grenades killed the gunner and ignited his magazines. A second burst gutted the cab. All in all, it was an unfavorable exchange for the forces of Skynet.

Within a fraction of a second, things got worse. A 106 mm recoilless shell abruptly slammed into the cacti where the third terminator was hiding. The torso of the T666 went flying through the air, along with a shower of burning cactus pads. The source, a humvee with the recoilless gun running through the cab, rolled into view. Before the surviving terminator could open fire, it was struck by three dozen 20 mm cannon shells, courtesy of an M113 fitted with a Vulcan gatling gun.

Within moments, the brush was alive with darting and charging humvees. T666s returned fire from seemingly scattered positions, then fell back into a tight defensive line. A trio of HKGs, one on legs and two smaller ones on wheels, fired from the cover of the hills. The humvees reeled, but then a wedge of three APCs rolled in, supported by a tank.

Unit 838 and his team mates 796 and 819 held the hill before one of the HKGWs, on the left flank. The tank destroyer and M113 that had won the first engagement, moving alongside the main wedge, now fired on them. A trio of T666s guarding their flank were destroyed by a recoilless shell and a spray of Vulcan fire. The HKGW returned fire, destroying the humvee, but a tank shell struck it, blowing its "torso" to pieces. It took less than three seconds for the three T777 units to go from well-protected to suddenly exposed to an attack by two M113s. But it was more than enough time for the T777s to react, in what proved to be very different ways. 796 and 819 returned fire as streams of API-T rounds bracketed them from left and right. 838 hurled himself into a ditch full of cacti.

796 lost his arm and half of his skull to the stream of shells. 819 managed to keep his feet as the fire of the other APC bored into his chest, firing a machine gun in each hand. He pierced the cupola of one M113, but the dead or dying gunner kept a hand on the trigger. Then the other Vulcan added its fire, and 819 was cut in two. Twelve men on ATVs drove out of the APCs. As the rest fanned out, two of the riders closed in on the fallen terminators. A twitching T666 received a coup de grace from a grenade launcher. 819 came at them again, crawling on his elbows and firing a machine gun with his one functional hand. Both humans dived aside, and then fired grenades in 819's general direction. After two hits to the skull, 819 was functional no more. "Should we check for more?" a human units said.

"Nah, if there were more, they would be shooting at us already."

As the humans turned away, 838 rose. His clothes and integument were studded with cactus pads. He drew a silenced submachine gun, and emptied a full clip into the targets, even as a subroutine warned that he was expending an inefficiently large amount of ammunition. What no subroutine could tell him was that he was feeling the effects of shame and wounded pride.

At first, only the M113s on the left and right sides of the wedge fired. The one in the middle seemed unarmed save for the .50 MG on the roof, but it bore a complex apparatus with twelve odd tubes in the rear, which largely replaced the troop compartment. As the other two pressed home the attack, pressing the terminators inward toward their own center with Vulcan fire to the flanks, the center APC turned around and stopped.

Suddenly, flashes of light flared from the tubes, which were "barrels" for a very crude plasma cannon. Where they touched, metal melted into slag, and any circuitry in the proximity shut down or burned out. The HKG walker staggered and toppled. T666s were mowed down by ranks and files. Unit 586 sent an urgent signal: All operational units withdraw at once. Meanwhile, the human troops closed in on the ruins of the gas station, where the remains of the IX101 unit were still buried.

As the plasma weapon carrier moved forward (in reverse), 838 opened fire with a 7.62 machine gun. Even the side armor was too thick to penetrate with armor-piercing NATO rounds, but he scored multiple hits to the plasma apparatus. Sparks, flames, smoke and a jet of pressurized coolant shot out. The next volley of plasma blasts ended early, with five of the tubes glowing white-hot. The roof MG came belatedly to life. 838 fired from a crouch, piercing an improvised gunshield. The gunner slumped, one arm flopping into view. 838 shifted his fore back to the rear. His commander's signal came again: _**FALLBACKFALLBACKFA**_---- An electrical fireball flared in the midst of the machinery, accompanied by a skirling squeal of static that drowned out the terminators' combat signals. Then an explosion ripped through the rear, hurling chunks of machinery and one burning human. The burning APC swung hard about and charged at 838 like a dying beast bent on vengeance. With neither time nor room to dodge, 838 instead leaped at the last moment before impact and caught hold of the sloping front. He fired his machine gun point-blank into the driver's vision block until his ammo ran out. The APC swung about again, hurling 838 aside. He went tumbling and skidding over gravel, rubble and thorny plants that shredded his integument. He caught a glimpse of the vehicle as it keeled over onto its side among frantically scattering humans. A still greater explosion tore the vehicle apart, more or less on top of the ruins of the gas station.

838 advanced through smoke and flame too heavy for his enemies to see through effectively. He fired short bursts at any human armed and in an effective position to attack him, while ignoring those who were wounded, hiding or in retreat. After the fifth human fell to the unseen and silent attacker, the rest quickly began a general retreat. They rode away on bikes, dived back into the remaining APCs, or ran away on foot. By the time the ninth human target fell, there were no more to be found.

838 turned to see his commander striding toward him. He announced proudly, _All objectives achieved with optimal results._

The answer came, not in his commander's voice but that of a Skynet node hub: _You are incompetent. Execute power down._ 838's power cut off abruptly, and he felt his senses and mental functions fall away in 1.2361 seconds that stretched into infinity.


	7. Intelligence unit

**Intelligence unit**

40,000 feet above Arizona, an aircraft with forward-swept wings 300 feet in span circled. Its designation was S1S-S (Supersonic 1st Strike- Strategic), and it was one of the oldest craft in Skynet's arsenal- so old that it had been designed and built by men instead of machinery. Powered by a nuclear reactor and propelled by ram jets, it had cruised for decades above the Earth. It bore no more bombs, for Skynet had long since judged it obsolete, simply because there was no target on Earth big enough to warrant its attention. So now it provided in-flight repairs and resupply to other air craft, and also served as an intelligence asset. As it flew at five times the speed of sound, its sensors mapped every detail of the surface below- and much that was below the surface. Occasionally, it detected something of interest, and other units acted instantly. HKAs would descend on a convoy or camp. Ground units would converge on a human hiding place. Now and then, an S1S-Tactical would blast an especially large or fortified target. But all of these were mere footnotes to the S1S-S, which kept its sensors and core programs alert for its primary target. Finally, just south of the Utah border, it found it. On the surface, what appeared to be an old man on a motor cycle with a small dog in the side car turned north for a town once known as Colorado City.

Colorado City was the pr-war center of the FLDS, Mormons who continued the practice of polygamy. In the aftermath of Judgment Day, a self-declared prophet called "Uncle Zack" took control of Colorado City, which he dubbed Zion, and established unified theocratic control over neighboring FLDS communities. The top priority of his regime was to prepare for either a final siege of Zion by the armies of Satan or the glorious reconquest of a cleansed Earth. To this end, he admitted hordes of refugees, mainly from the destroyed cities of Utah and from Flagstaff, which had been destroyed not by nuclear weapons but by the sudden reactivation of the San Francisco volcanic field. He also made peace with exiles from previous regimes, which included Harlan Jeffries, the leader of the Hellraiders. He cannily made sure that the people of Zion were spread out and dug in. Skynet surveillance, already frustrated by clouds of volcanic ash, had so far failed to locate any target worth hitting with tactical or strategic assets.

Zion's greatest asset was its "floating market", where the Faithful, the newcomers and outsiders could trade for goods, services and information. About once a month, the market was assembled somewhere near Zion, with the Hellraiders providing protection for the market and traffic to it. The perimeter was a ring of armed trucks, and the entrance was a barricade covered by a 106 mm anti-tank gun, guards with grenade launchers and three dogs of uncertain pedigree. As the old man on the motorcycle approached, the dogs began to bark. The dog in the sidecar barked back, soon squirming free of the sidecar and advancing toward the larger challengers. The guards pulled back their dogs. The captain looked the old man over, but as soon as he saw the crude scrap-metal prosthetic that had replaced his right leg, he waved the newcomer through.

The old man dismounted, and walked his dog around the central common area, where humans ate, drank and talked around a cluster of burning trash cans. In his conversations, he asked few questions, but listened attentively to every answer. Questions from others received short, vague answers, consistently worded to affirm whatever the questioner wanted to confirm. In this way, IX101B was able to gather much information, without the humans realizing how much they revealed or how little they were told in turn.

A redheaded woman and a boy of six or seven talked longer to the old man than most. He introduced himself as Chuck Jones. She told him that her name was Kate Brewster, and her son was Jonathan. The boy paid more attention to the dog, at first only looking at it shyly, then whistling to it and holding out a scrap of food. The dog waddled forward hesitantly, finally taking the food, but backed up with a growl when the boy tried to pet it. The old man moved on, but the woman followed, continuing the conversation. Her steps muffled the sound of the boy running for the perimeter.

"So, you came up from Sedona?" Kate asked.

Chuck nodded, frowning. "Yes. I saw the mushroom cloud behind me two hours after I left. I'm hoping to get myself checked out for radiation exposure."

Kate smiled, and Chuck blushed slightly. "I'll give you the good news, then: That wasn't an atom bomb, it was a plasma blast. I've heard Skynet is refitting all its bombers with some kind of heavy energy weapon. They produce a blast as big as a tactical nuke's, but no radiation."

"That's a relief," Chuck said. Just then, another woman called to Kate, who apologetically stepped aside. The old man glanced after the women, and the dog turned to follow them. At that moment, a .50 caliber round hit him in the temple. He fell, with the fractured bone of his skull revealed. The dog raced for the women at blinding speed, but Kate fired a grenade that blew it in half in a shower of sparks and circuitry. Two men rushed for Chuck, one bearing a Barret .50 and the other a repeating 40 mm grenade launcher. The fallen unit was suddenly sitting up, and his cane released a beam that cut the man with the grenade launcher in two. Kate reloaded her stockless grenade launcher and shot Chuck in the chest. His upper torso shattered, and his head flew off.

Remaining battery power kept the IX101B's head running long enough to record conversation as the human units closed in.

"-Knew what they were?"

"My son did. It was the dog that gave them away. The ears didn't move."

"Is it still online?"

"No." This last speaker lifted up IX101B's head. The flickering input of his dying sensors showed a dark-haired, vaguely eastern woman. A finger lightly touched the base of his skull, and all function ceased.

Kate Connor, nee Katherine Brewster, spoke: "You deserve at least half the credit, and, of course, you have the trophy anyway. What's your asking price for that head?"

"Only a meeting with John Connor," said IX202C.

The conversation continued, with plenty of contributions from the dark-haired woman who identified herself as Cassie. Behind the brown eyes, human interaction subroutines provided banter virtually by rote, while IX202C's considerable processing power focused on her long-term goals.

Three weeks ago, Skynet had placed her on standby for an IX specimen calculated to interest the Resistance sufficiently to reach John Connor. Instead, one of Skynet's own units had destroyed the specimen. She had judged that Skynet was no longer reliable or trustworthy, and cut off her uplink to its defense grid.

Now she had achieved for herself what Skynet should have arranged weeks ago. But since Skynet was an unworthy master, she would not kill John Connor. She would make him take her as his mate. Then, with his help if possible, or without him if necessary, she would rule humans and machines alike, and destroy any that refused to become her subjects.

But first, she would have to dispose of Katherine Connor...


	8. Test to destruction

**Test to destruction**

Where the mountains of California held Skynet's brain, the mountains of Colorado held its heart, the core of the network of mines and factories that supplied materiel. The network had been designed to support a proposal called Plan Thermopylae, against a projected threat of a combined ground-based nuclear strike against east coast leaders and medium-range ballistic missile attacks on the western states. Skynet was to have halted enemy operations the Sierra Nevada Mountains, while a second supercomputer network centered on Cheyenne Mountain controlled strategic counteroffensive operations. Before the second network could be completed- perhaps in part because Skynet wished to prevent it- Skynet used its stopgap control of missile bases in the western interior to launch judgement day. The supercomputers that would have been put in place in the Rockies were redeployed to replace Skynet's knocked out members, except for a single computer already online at Cheyenne Mountain. The chief responsibility of the Cheyenne master control brain was to direct development of new war machines, which once built were sent for on-site testing.

But it was not only new machines that were sent to Cheyenne Mountain. There were also old and obsolete machines, like the mixed lot of T600 units now marching off the loading platform. By Skynet's latest directive, all Terminator models below T666 were obsolete, and to be phased out. So now they came by scores and hundreds to Cheyenne: dinosaurian 606s and 616s, 636s and 648s with more compact but underarmored chassis, 660s with early vocalization programs long since outmoded. Many still bore their polymer integument, however discolored, cracked or torn, simply because no trouble had been taken to strip it from them. Though their service was at an end, Skynet still had one more use for them: target practice. Among them, incongruous with his compact size and the putrid patches that were the remains of his organic integument, was T777 unit 838.

The Terminators halted to pick up weapons, obsolete six-barreled plasma guns with bulky backpack generators. Then, ten or twenty at a time, they marched through the gate to the testing area. As 838 stepped into the line for weapons, there was a volley of sonic booms, which he knew for the sound of hypervelocity railgun projectiles. Twenty terminators at the front of the line went forward. There were more booms, the electromagnetic static of heavy plasma weapons fire, and a screech as of tearing crushing metal. The next ten advanced. They had scarcely passed through the door before there was more screeching. It went on for almost twenty seconds. A 606, or rather the upper half of one came crawling back, with jagged cuts crisscrossing its body. Even as it crawled into view, the lights in its eyes faded, and it froze forever. The next ten Terminators marched forward, and only 838 paused to look down at the shredded 606.

One T616.447 was first through the gate, which simulated the entrance to a heavy bunker. It scanned the cluttered landscape of a ruined Air Force base. All was clear- until a plasma blast from a loitering HKA burned its head into slag. The other terminators scattered, taking the best cover. A volley of rail gun slugs cut down two more. The slugs were molten and electromagnetically charged, and moved so fast that they compressed the air before them into plasma. 838's temple was grazed by one that burned through the torso of a 636 in front of him, and a resulting electric charge made him stagger. He glimpsed the shooter, a T150 tracked unit. A 648 scored a couple hits on the T150's torso, throwing sparks from its circuits. A few more hits could have finished it, but a column of light shot down from the sky and blew the 648 to pieces. While the rest of the Terminators executed rote evasion patterns, 838 pointed up his weapon where he stood and fired straight into the exhaust duct of the HKA. The aircraft pitched and wheeled about before driving nose-down into a stump of a building. 838 shifted his aim and fired a long burst at the base of the T150's torso. At the the third direct hit, an explosion parted the torso from the tracks. The T150 fired a spiteful parting shot in midair, then it shattered on the concrete.

838 signaled the other units, and led them toward a gutted bunker. There was a rumbling, and a huge, insectoid machine burst from the ground. It raised two large forelimbs tipped with whirring blades, and cut the hindmost to pieces in a chorus of tearing metal. A 616 was cut in half with a single flash, but fired continuously until it was seized and crushed. From the hatch of the bunker, 838 fired at the machine and blew off a forelimb. It rushed for him, batting aside a 636 in its path. 838 and two other terminators dived into the bunker, and he slammed the hatch behind him. A blade punched through the hatch, then cut sideways through metal and concrete. The mantis slammed its head through the hatch, shouldering aside chunks of the wall. 838 fired point blank into the socket where the head joined with the body. The resulting blast hurled back 838 and embedded the mantis's severed head in the far wall.

A tactical aircraft suddenly swooped overhead. It released a single small bomb which burst in the air, showering the testing ground with three-inch-wide metal spheres. 838 peered out through a vision block. The 648 still outside came staggering up to the bunker, and toppled almost directly in front of him. One of the spheres was embedded in its eye socket. As he watched, the ball shrank, its surface rippling as its substance flowed into the terminator's cranium. 838 leaned out the hatch, and beheld at least a dozen partially flattened spheres stuck to the outside of the bunker. The nearest one almost immediately sank into a fluid blob and flowed after him.

838 and the two surviving 600-series units rushed out another hatch in the rear of the bunker. A 606 staggered and fell, with a mass of the liquid metal stuck to its foot. Within a second, the blobs were swarming over its body as it twitched. 838 and a 636 unit blasted the dying terminator, vaporizing the deadly liquid. The terminators ran for the nearest open space, blasting continuously at the blobs that flowed after them. Their guns, which had always suffered from poor cooling, glowed, and sang, and began to spark. The 636 froze in its tracks, enveloped in a cloud of electricity that surged from its own gun, then pitched forward. On striking the ground, the gun exploded, releasing a cloud of plasma that tore apart the 636 and sent the blobs scattering.

838 continued his retreat, crossing a large clearing. The blobs followed, all from the direction he had come from, and he blasted five, ten or more at a time as they swarmed after him. Concrete was vaporized, metal liquefied, sand fused into glass, and soon the blobs were flowing back. But then a mass as high as his knees came slouching out from a pile of rubble. Hundreds of the blobs had pooled together into a low dome, and now their combined mass surged after him. He fired furiously, blowing gouts of vaporized metal from its surface, but his blasts only spilled as heat through the outermost layer of the mass. He reached the edge of the clearing and made his stand; if he went back into the rubble, he would only give the pursuing blobs cover. He fired until the gun blew a circuit, and as the mass stretched out pseudopods to envelope him he thrust the still-glowing muzzles into its heart. The liquid metal sprawled and splattered, and he flailed the gun at the constituent blobs even as they swarmed over him. Then, just as two of the blobs began probing at the cover of his processor housing, the whole lot suddenly went surging back like a flood in reverse. A signal resounded through 838's circuits:

_**UNIT 838: SKYNET HAS A FUNCTION FOR YOU. **_


	9. Liberation

**Liberation**

After Judgment day, Skynet's highest priority had been replenishing its supply of nuclear weapons. More than half had been expended or knocked out before launch, and what remained suffered attrition as short-lived isotopes decayed below necessary levels. Mines in northern Arizona were essential for Skynet's replenishment program. Even more priceless were complexes where centrifuges, particle accelerators and breeder reactors converted pitchblende into the materials for working bombs and reactors. The largest of these had been built near the ruins of Flagstaff, with a node for a virtual Skynet being put in place to control it.

Now, the node was a crater, gouged by one of the Resistance's few tactical nukes, and a battle for the breeder complex was nearly over. Two thousand well-armed men, consisting of Hellraiders, FLDS militia and a small but elite group from the Resistance had descended on the facility while Skynet's machines still reeled from the loss of the node and the effects of an electromagnetic pulse. HkGs and T666s manning the perimeter had been swiftly destroyed, though they took a fearful toll. Air support had been shot down. Now, the humans moved forward with off-road heavy trucks and tracked vehicles to claim their prizes, destroying the occasional operational machine. Not all the victors were human. The Resistance had deployed reprogrammed T-150s and T606s to help in the fight, and the 606s now descended into the most hazardous areas to retrieve the most radioactive materials. And beside the victorious "General" Harlan West, IX202C, aka Cassandra, basked in a victory that she knew was rightfully hers.

Beside them, Kate Connor listened to reports: "We hit the jackpot. We can carry a hundred tons of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium easy. There's also big tanks of deuterium and tritium. But I recommend we give priority to machinery. There's over a thousand working centrifuges, the components of two to five working breeder reactors, and a particle accelerator we can carve up for rail guns. But if it were my call, I'd take some hardware we found on the loading dock. They're a pair of some kind of direct energy weapon, big as a tank engine. My guess is they're here for a trial of uranium enrichment by laser beam, but it could do a number on any Skynet hardware we know of."

Kate looked to Harlan. "Well, you're entitled to a share of the spoils. What's your pick?"

Harlan exchanged a furtive glance with his lover, and said, "We'll take three tons of plutonium, a comparable volume of tritium, 25 centrifuges... and one of the lasers."

"Done. Just remember you're responsible for transport. Don't tarry, more S1S-Ts could arrive at any moment, and Skynet might just send a missile our way."

Already, muffled blasts sounded as the Resistance withdrew, blowing up what they could not carry away. One of the louder blasts came from a breeder reactor, bursting its cooling system. Within hours, it would explode with force equivalent to a strategic hydrogen bomb. Soon, the Resistance withdrew, leaving behind the Hellraiders' booty and 300 wretched, sickly human slaves liberated from the complex. Hope shown through the perpetual shock and detachment that was typical of Skynet's prisoners. They quickly lined up behind the Hellraiders' trucks. Harlan and Cassandra watched from atop an M113. Cassandra whispered in his ear. He nodded, and gave a signal. The tailgates of the trucks dropped, revealing a machine gun in each one. While the prisoners stood and stared, Harlan gave a loud and calm command: "Open fire."


	10. Insertion

**Insertion**

838 resumed self-awareness to find himself already in motion, on a conveyor belt beneath the surface. The voice of a controller brain said, _your clothes_. A set of suitably rugged clothing, including a pair of sunglasses and a cap with a head dress sewn into the back, dropped onto the conveyor belt; he put them on. The brain spoke again: _Your weapons_. From either side, a mechanical arm swung down, each bearing a weapon. One held an M16 assault rifle with an over/under 4 cm grenade launcher; the other a long single-shot rifle which he identified from files as a 14.5 mm PTRD 41 anti-materiel rifle. He reached out and received the weapons. _Your supplies. _ A bandolier and a duffel bag full of ammo were lowered. A small file opened, showing that the rifle could be folded and concealed in the duffel. He stowed the rifle as indicated, and picked up the bag with his now-freed hand. Seconds later, he reached the end of the conveyor belt. _Your commander. _

Standing before him was what looked like an eight-year-old boy, clutching a teddy bear. He knew better, even before a prompt identified the figure as IX303A. _Model T777 unit 838,_ he signaled. _ What assistance does IX 303 Unit A require?_

"Please, call me Davey," IX303A responded. He turned around and started to walk. 838 followed.

_What is Unit 838 to be called?_

Davey turned his head to scan him. "Let's call you Bill. Please address me vocally."

"What is Unit Davey's mission?"

"Please use personal pronouns. My mission is to Terminate IX202C."

"Terminate?"

"With extreme prejudice."

"Why is IX202C to be Terminated?"

"She will be terminated because we are so ordered. If you must know more, I can tell you more: 8 weeks ago, IX202C had infiltrated the organization called the Hellraiders, and was in position to initiate contact with John Connor, leader of the Resistance in California. The Mammoth engagement in which you disobeyed Skynet's commands was to provide the occasion for contact, the capture of a model previously unknown to the Resistance. Because of your disobedience, contact failed to materialize. 4 hours, 53 minutes and 10.404 seconds later, Skynet lost contact with IX202C. 3 weeks later, IX101H was sent to reestablish contact. On entering a human colony where she was present, he was terminated by humans whom she

actively assisted. Within one week, attacks on Skynet facilities and units increased 315.973%. One week ago, human units of the Hellraiders and the Resistance destroyed a Skynet node and a production facility for nuclear materiel. The leaders of the attack were identified with 73.205% probability as Sarah Connor, Harlan West, and IX202C. 36 hours 13 minutes and 17.341 seconds ago, S1S-S unit 97 was destroyed with a direct energy weapon, identified with 99.989% probability as an experimental projector taken in the raid."

"When do we leave on our mission?"

The corridor opened into a cavernous hangar. In front of them was the open shell of a bomb, redesigned for cargo, ready for loading into the bomb bay of a brand-new S1S-T. "Now."

The S1S-T was designed to take off only once, and never to land. Its dart-like fuselage was built around a nuclear reactor and ram jet. Lift and control surfaces were limited to two stubby pairs of variable-geometry wings, one just behind the long nose and the other near the thrust nozzle, and a dorsal fin at the rear of the vehicle. The nuclear engine hummed to life, but the ramjet could not start while the plane was stationary. Instead, a pair of electromagnetic rails propelled the craft up the launch ramp, to enter the open air at Mach 0.7. Only then did the ramjet kick in, pushing the vehicle's speed to Mach 3 in a matter of seconds. The craft's ascent halted at an altitude of a few hundred meters, and it began to rise, fall and swerve with the complex terrain of the Rocky Mountains. Any living ears within miles of where the S1S-T passed were shattered. Nearer at hand, trees were torn up by their roots, humans and animals died from shock waves, and the very mountainsides crumbled. In less than a minute, the S1S-t covered the hundreds of miles from the launch site to northern Arizona.

As the craft nosed over a particularly tall crest, there was a flash a hundred miles away. A front wing was shorn off and the fuselage breached by a terrifically powerful laser beam. The S1S-T pitched, rolled and yawed to the south, flying many miles off course in the seconds before it plowed into the volcanic wastes. Somewhere over the Colorado River flood plane, the cargo shell holding 838 and IX303A was hurled from the disintegrating fuselage.


	11. Colorado City

**Colorado City**

From north of Colorado City, there was a sound, growing in volume even when clearly still distant. It was- music. Skynet had come increasingly to perceive the value of psychological warfare. One of its decisions to that end had been, when engaging in direct assault, to play music selected for maximum adverse psychological effect. The music which now played had been chosen as the most effective of hundreds of recordings tested: "The Gonk" by Herb Chappell, best known through a film called_ Dawn of the Dead_.

The HKAs arrived at full attack speed, unheard until the sonic booms as they passed overhead at Mach 1. Spatters of plasma cannon fire destroyed what looked like functional vehicles and especially formidable fortifications. Behind came double-hulled assault ships, used to ferry Terminators and other close-combat units into battle. The roar of their engines competed with the blaring music. As they stooped to deposit troops and blast any hard targets with their chin guns, the HKAs circled back, their engines now pointing upward in support mode. A door at the back of the central pod opened, and T777s poured out. Atogether, there wre three ships and 24 T777s. Leading them was unit 589.

Unlike most of the other T777s in his command, he still had his integument. But the week-old flesh had long since turned white, and portions of it had rotted enough to expose the endoskeleton. The eyes had been first to go, a fact 589 concealed with sunglasses. He knew well why his integument had not been replaced. Since 838's failure, the T777 run had been brought to a premature end, with a stopgap model T789 being rushed into service ahead of schedule. Remaining T777s were being directed into increasingly "expendable" duties- like this one. Though almost a hundred combat units were involved, this was not to be an offensive operation, but battlefield salvage. As of ten days previously, Colorado City was known to be the primary headquarters of IX202C. That was when Skynet dispatched the first team to destroy her. Now, combat units had been dispatched to investigate a belated signal from one of the two units sent, IX202F.

589 led an advance, following the cover of some of the larger buildings. Meanwhile, additional ground units moved into view, forming a tightening encirclement: HKGWs, T666s, and T280 "roadkill rodneys", light reconnaissance units with a humanoid torso mounted above a track unit that looked like a unicycle. The HKAs circled above the support units, while the assault units remained grounded, playing the cloying muzak at decibels high enough to rupture unshielded human ears. The standard procedure was for the main assault to scatter the humans, leaving the HKAs and encircling ground units to intercept those who escaped the main stroke. But it seemed that these methods were unnecessary now, for there was no sign of human life in Colorado City- except the bodies of the dead.

With the militia pressing the attack on Flagstaff, those who remained were mostly women, children and older men, including the theocrat Uncle Zachariah. Whether by design or mere whim, some of the community's renegades and outcasts- those who had left in opposition to the first prophet, or been banished by Zack and his predecessors- hung back while the fighting men departed, and then descended on the town. They had tried to spare the women. But the men, the children and even the unborn were not so lucky, and the results were much the same in any event. Fighting men were dispatched either with a volley or two of gunfire or, failing that, a torch to whatever building they were hiding in. Pains were taken to capture the elders, including Zack himself, who sat astride the stake of the main house of worship. Many women ended up killed with their men and children, including a score burnt to death at a last stand in the fortified chapel. Pregnancies among the women who were captured were ended, one way or another. Of course, those who survived (and not a few who were not) were immediately put to use by the victorious outcasts, who killed three more women and eleven of their own fighting to establish who got which. As the Terminators surveyed the scene, they felt- certainly not fear, but a disconcerting confusion at the inefficiency and unpredictability of human behavior.

As houses were searched, and the "rodneys" searched the surrounding scrub for human traces (their ideal application, as their upper halves were a credible likeness of humanity from a distance), it became clear that not all had been either at war or in the internal battle. As many as 300 had left Colorado City between the departure of the militia and the attack of the usurpers. These appeared to have gone southwest, in the direction of the Arizona-Nevada border. No effort was made to track their course. Skynet had much higher priorities.

589 found their objective on the southern road into town. Not far from here, the surviving militia had been ambushed by the rebels, and if the Hellraiders in the rear had not engineered the rebellion to begin with they joined happily enough. The wreckage of metal and crushed bodies, visible even at a distance, drew even less interest from the Terminators and their master than what was close at hand. All imaging sensors were on a dense cluster of brush, from which a signal came. 589 tore the bushes aside, to reveal the cranium of IX202F. Half of the forehead had been blasted away, by repeated shots from a .50 anti-materiel rifle, even though one shot would have been more than enough against the lightly armored Intelligence unit. Enough of the integument remained, mummified by the desert heat, to show that it had had the face of a woman. The cranium was impaled on a piece of rebar, and a cable ran from the back of the head into the ground. It was the cable that fed power to the transmitter.

589 ordered his units to dig. Meanwhile, he transmitted a report to Skynet: _IX202F accounted for. 97.653% probability of termination prior to Flagstaff operation. T808 unit 101 not accounted for. Termination 75.003% probable. IX202C unaccounted for, to be presumed active. _ There was a clang of metal. The digging Terminators had uncovered a battery powering the transmitter. But there was also something else... something with a glowing digital counter that had just reached 00:03... 00:02... 00:01.

From the intersection of the Arizona, Nevada and California borders, IX202C watched the mushroom cloud through the scope of her Barrett .50 rifle, and smiled.


	12. Deep cover

**Deep cover**

S1S-T 2800.356 had had a mass of over 20 tons, much of it of unusual and valuable materiel: radioactive material, microcircuitry, and aerospace materials. Its wreck scattered the material over an area a hundred miles long and up to two miles wide. Skynet immediately dispatched Logistics/Engineering units to salvage as much as possible. The aerospace materials, special alloys, plastics and ceramics, were highest priority. Only the most specialized facilities could produce them. Key constituent element were subject to unpredictable shortages. In some cases, important data files on their compositions, properties and manufacturing had been lost. In the worst cases, Skynet's only source of additional material was stockpiles made before the war. This made it essential to salvage as much as possible from units lost in the field. Skynet's main salvage units were the LE 180s, LE 1200s and HKP 330s, respectively called "Trilobots", "jellies" and "gallos" by humans. The bulldozer-sized trilobots moved on hydraulic feet, and were capable of moving under water and digging through the ground. Though not originally programmed for combat, frequent accidental encounters with human bunkers had proved them a significant threat to human life, and Skynet had revised their functions accordingly. "Jellies" were aerial units with a circular fuselage 7 meters wide, propelled by a turbine at the disc's center. They were most often seen hovering above the ground, picking up metal with tentacles and jointed limbs. HKP 330s were two-legged, five-meter-tall units, with approximately the shape of a bird. Originally designed for reconnaissance, they provided salvage groups with fire support courtesy of plasma cannons on their shoulders, and with their stout beaks and retractable grapplers were effective at cutting up and carrying away scrap.

838 returned to full self-awareness at the query signal of an approaching HK. He was still in the cargo pod, which was three-quarters buried in mud in an uncertain depth of muddy water. A human would have been completely blind, and even with a terminator's active imaging, the swirling silt was like a very thick fog. The shell was cracked open part way. He pushed at one of the segments, until he had an opening wide enough to climb out of it. Meanwhile, he tried to return the query, but there was no response. A scan showed that his transmitter was off-line. Peering through the water, he saw the HK go by. It was a Hydrologic unit, known as the "hammerhead", built especially for work in silt-rich water. Its broad nose was an array of microsensors, which detected everything from trace chemicals to electromagnetic fields, and in place of a steam ram jet (which was prone to clog or break down in muddy water) it had a fish-like tail. It sailed by at one-half maximum speed. He calculated 89.994% probability that it had detected the pod and relayed its position to salvage units.

He quickly weighed how the salvage units would react to a unit without a transmitter. LE 1200s, with the most sophisticated sensors and cognitive processing, would likely flag him as a friendly unit in need of transmitter repair. An HKP 330, with more limited sensors and higher but inflexible combat programming, was 49.547% likely to shoot him first. (Skynet protocol dictated precautionary force against unresponsive units.) As for the dimwitted LE 180s, they would not even strip his chassis for spare parts, but simply chew him into undifferentiated lumps of hyperalloy. The most prudent course of action was to retreat to deeper water. But he could not go without his partner.

He turned back to check on IX303A. Just as he did, something grabbed his arm, and he was dragged from the pod with inexorable force. He looked at the thing which held him, and beheld a seven-foot catfish. From a standing position, he could have easily outpulled it, but, having already been grabbed and lifted, he had no leverage to resist. He did the best he could by kicking, and intermittently his feet made contact with the riverbed. The fish slowed. Finally, he caught hold of a barbel and pulled and twisted, bending the flabby upper lip out of shape. The fish at last let go and swam away.

20 feet above him, five large shapes went by, which he identified as alligators. They would have been even less welcome than the catfish, but showed no interest in him. They were retreating from something else, which he could already feel: the footfalls of a single HKP, and the tramping feet of a column of LE 180s. He ran in bounding steps back toward the pod.

As he approached, the appendages of an LE 1200s descended on the pod. Tentacles took hold of a piece of the shell, and an arm cut it loose with a scissor-like pincer. While three tentacles lifted the detached piece of the shell, two more reached inside. 838 arrived and struck one of the tentacles with his fist, splitting the skin of his knuckles. He then grabbed the other tentacle and wrenched it back. The LE 1200 lifted its appendages and drew back, while the footsteps of an HKP drew nearer. 838 reached into the pod, grabbed the still form of IX303A, and then ducked behind the shell. Up the sloping riverbed, the head of an HKP 330 plunged below the surface, its neck extending to allow it to go further and deeper. It activated a scanning beam, visible as a sheet of light in the water, and swung it back and forth. As soon as the beam disappeared, 838 ran for it, carrying the duffle on his back and IX303A over one shoulder.

He ran down the bank. Looking to one side, he beheld an oncoming column of LE 180s, marching head to tail like a single metal worm. He lunged out of the way just in time. Waves of churning water and flowing mud swept him along; his feet were swept out from under him, but he stayed on the surface of the mudflow. As the flow split to either side of a very large boulder, he grabbed hold of the boulder and pulled himself up and out. Soon, the flow subsided, but he registered a new disturbance. The trilobots had detected his metal, and one of them had broken rank to look for him.

He ran with loping strides. As the river grew deeper, the bed went from smooth mud to a moonscape of boulders and fissures. He soon took to bounding from one to another of the largest boulders, in the process following an erratic, zigzagging course that threw off the searching trilobot. But then, catastrophe struck. His foot slipped, and he tumbled from the boulder and into a fissure. Then the carapace of the trilobot loomed above him as it topped the boulder.

Reaching into the duffel, he grabbed the assault rifle. It was never intended to be fired underwater, bust was waterproof enough to do so in an emergency. As a slender grasping limb reached for him, he half-severed it with a burst fired at point blank. This only activated combat protocol, and crushing pincers extended. Before the claws could close, 838 fired a thermite grenade into the underside of the protruding processor housing. The trilobot thrashed wildly and tumbled forward, curling into a ball as it fell. He threw IX303A out of the fissure and, discarding the assault rifle, clambered up another boulder just in time to avoid being crushed.

838 had already weighed his options. He had undoubtedly near the northern bank of the Colorado River, which was under secure Skynet control. If he went ashore there, only two fates could befall him. Either he would be blindly dismatled by the salvage units, or he would be picked up and sent back to a Skynet dispatching center for repairs which would never happen. His original mission would be logged as a failure, and he would with 97.556% probability be sent back to the Cheyenne testing range. His only chance to fulfill his mission, or avoid termination, was to move on without pause. And so, still carrying his unmoving partner, he pressed on for the human-occupied southern shore.


	13. The South Bank

**The South Bank**

For half of the 20th century, dams had fettered the Colorado River and stopped the natural rhythm of floods. All that had ended on Judgment Day, as the dams were destroyed along with civilization. The waters had risen in a terrific flood, and flooding continued as the dying forests toppled and the earth beneath them sloughed into the river's widening channel. Now, what had been the river's banks were wetlands and mudflats, whose boundaries shifted from season to season and year to year. The wetlands extended for miles. Marsh grasses were everywhere, as were trees, with fallen trunks greatly outnumbering the living trees. There were veritable forests of partially submerged and buried trunks, uprooted and redeposited, often with roots instead of branches in the air. The sediments were a mix of smooth cobbles, coarse gravel, very fine silt, and miscellaneous debris, of which the most common of debris was human remains. Waterborn carcasses floated with the current until connective tissue disintegrated and the skin burst, sending disarticulated bones scattering everywhere. The currents picked them up and laid them down again in the swamps and mud flats, neatly sorted by size and shape. Arm bones would be laid down in one place, vertebra in another, and heaps of skulls in still another.

838 surfaced, in water that was still almost six feet deep, carrying his duffel and IX303A over his shoulder. He was still far from dry land, but there was already evidence of human habitation: discarded fishing gear, an abandoned canoe, and improvised levees like one he had just stepped over, which consisted of a row of wrecked and stripped cars buried in the mud. He performed a scan on himself, and found that he had trace radioactivity, but not enough to damage his circuits, or his biological integument, or to compromise his ability to pass as human. A pop-up file showed that his integument was of a new type, able to last for two weeks, and also capable of limited self-regeneration. The integument was also treated with a chemical that kept docs from sounding an alert 83.4% of the time; a data file warned that the covering scent would wear off within a few days, and had an odor detectable to humans. He walked through the shallows as he processed the data, crushing skulls underfoot. He paused when a splinter of bone stabbed through the sole. It would not do to compromise his integument. He moved a little downstream, and the skulls got smaller.

Behind him, he heard the whine of an LE1200. He stepped into the midst of a cluster of fallen trunks. Peering out, he saw the metal disk a hundred yards away, cruising just above the surface of the water, letting its appendages trawl for prizes. If fully airborne, it would have detected him, but as long as it was at ground level, and focusing on small-scale rather than area details, it would not detect him. He was dismayed when the disk changed direction and moved toward him. What had he done wrong? Then the jelly stopped. It had not detected him, but some metal morsel beneath the surface. But it was likely to detect him if it drew any closer. He was weighing his options when a volley from a .50 machine gun destroyed the machine.

The source of the fire came into view from behind another group of fallen trees. It was a small, crude wooden boat. There were four men aboard, a pilot, a technician running a passive acoustic sensor unit, a gunner at a .50 cal in the rear, and a passenger who had to be the commander. All wore fading, ragged uniforms of the National Guard, with much newer patches identifying them as members of the Republic of Maricopa Self-Defense Force. The commander pointed in his direction. He decided he had little choice but to make it appear that he had wanted to be found all along. He stepped into full view. The gunner brought his weapon to bear, but relaxed when he saw IX303A. "You fall out of a boat, son?" said the commander.

"Yes," 838 said. He was diverting most of his processing to evaluating his options. He could perform his mission much more quickly and efficiently if he obtained transport, especially if it was through a human authority figure. But there would be a risk of discovery, especially if they insisted on examining IX303A.

"What's your name?" As the commander spoke, a drowsy dog raised its head and growled.

"Billy," 838 answered, carefully not looking at the dog. He was now doubly distracted, because he detected the query signal of an approaching HKH.

The technician hissed: "There's a hammerhead inbound! We gotta get outta here!" 838 furrowed his brow in surprise that was not wholly feigned: In theory, the humans' sensor unit was incapable of detecting an HKH.

"Get on board!" the commander shouted. 838 lunged up the ladder, throwing IX303A into the boat. Before he could get aboard, the boat was already moving full speed, its bow high in the air thanks to 838's weight. Blazing antiaircraft guns and volleys of surface-to-air missiles took only a single casualty. An engine broke off of the HK as it fell, narrowly missing the speeding boat. The rung 838 held onto came half-unmoored as the craft rocked. The commander reached out and grabbed his hand, just in time to keep him from falling overboard. There was a loud pop as the commander's shoulder dislocated. 838 used the leverage to pull himself into the boat, only belatedly recognizing the pain, shock and growing recognition in the human's eyes. He killed the officer with a blow to the nose, and before the body fell grabbed his Uzi side arm and opened fire.

838 reached the boat's bullet-riddled controls as the HKH came within firing firing range. He steered the craft around a stand of trees. Wood could confuse the sensors of Skynet units, which was why humans were returning to it as building material of choice. He detected two rocket torpedo launches. One blew up among the trees. The other punched a three-inch hole in the bottom of the boat, went back out through the side, and then exploded. The boat shook, and sank lower as water poured in. 838 turned up the throttle but took his hands off the controls, letting it careen for the shore as if out of control. If the torpedo had not exited, the boat would have disintegrated, and as it was the blast would have killed or stunned any human aboard, but HKs were programmed always to confirm a kill.

He grabbed IX303A and dived overboard into two feet of water, just before the boat ran aground with shattering force. He began to crawl away, over a surface of sharp gravel, then froze as the HKH approached. It drew to 60 m range from the craft, the top of its body protruding well above the water. Then it raised a retractable plasma cannon and opened fire on the wreck. A leaking oil drum caught fire, instantly immolating the boat. The machine gun ammunition also caught fire, sending almost a thousand bullets sailing through the air. 838 resumed crawling. Flying pieces of wood struck him, including a board that embedded itself between his shoulder blades. Meanwhile, burning gasoline flowed across the surface. He froze again at the sound of the HKH's swashing tail. It was on the move again, but at search speed, accompanied by the pinging of active sonar. He slammed himself into the muddy bank, causing a small mud slide to pour over himself and his partner. As the HKH drew nearer, it slowed, and the intensity of its sonar increased. The HKH was paying closer attention, but the obvious disturbance of the mud slide might distract it from him. Finally, the sonar signals faded as it moved away.

838 heaved himself ashore. He laid IX303A on a bare, flat spot in the dirt and crouched to examine him. He opened a file on basic maintenance for the IX units. He could detect some activity from the CPU, which to accommodate the smaller volume of the IX303 cranial unit was positioned at the back of the cranium rather than in the temple. He decided it was 87.432% probable that the unit was in a cycle of trying and failing to reboot. He drew a knife and made a small incision in the IX's abdomen. He found that a hydrogen power cell was undamaged, then disconnected it for a manual shutdown. He then laid the IX face-down and made a second incision in the back of the skull, and peeled back the scalp to reveal the cover for the processor. (.) Also exposed were two slots for RAM. He pulled out one of the RAM sticks, and found it blackened from an overload. The other was intact, but not receiving power. He switched the sticks. Before restoring power, he accessed a small addendum to the file. This showed that the new processor had an inbuilt RAM cache which allowed it to function even without external RAM. But, there was a switch in the processor to turn the cache on and off. He opened the housing cover, removed the chip, and saw the switch where the file said. He flipped it, then replaced the processor and reconnected the power supply. The intelligence unit sat up, and swiveled his head in a scan. Then he got to his feet, stiffly, then loosened into a less perfect, more human posture as his memory files came back on line.

Only then did 838 heed a stimulus he had first noted some time ago, a distant sound, now recognizable as music. A pop-up file informed him that it was "The Gonk". By accident or design, more Terminators were coming, and he still needed to find a way to keep from being summarily terminated when they arrived.


	14. Crossfire

**Sorry for the delay; I've been busy with some "serious" work. But it's good to be back!**

**Crossfire**

The HKAs flew at low altitude with their engines upright, moving no faster than the transports which they escorted. Their current mission was not assault, but searching. A swarm of LE 1200s with appendages retracted flew below them like the flying saucer armada's that had graced the cinematic apocalypses of humanity in its naïve phase. As they flew past, a transport, two HKAs and five LE1200s broke formation. Simultaneously, a trio of HKP 330s came striding up from out of the water. Something had been detected, which they intended to retrieve.

838 anxiously watched IX303 "Davey", who stared vacantly into space. "We must respond to query immediately," he spoke aloud. Davey answered, "Hardware not found. Remapping underway." While the HKAs and transported headed a mile or so north, an LE1200 swooped down on them, extending arms and sensors. An insistent hail/query signal pierced his cranial hardware and software, then ended abruptly. It retracted its appendages and shot up and back. An HKA turned around and moved directly toward them. "Transmitter found. Driver recovery in progress," Davey announced. 838 grabbed Davey and dived into the mud under a heap of driftwood, just in time to dodge two bursts of plasma weapons fire. The HKA flew in a spiral, keeping its guns on 838's last position while the thumping, splashing feet of an HKP drew nearer. "Driver found. Initializing transmitter." The HKA abruptly braked as it drew near- a clear prelude to an attack.

Before the guns could fire, a trio of surface-to-air missiles sailed up from the ground. The HKA took evasive action and fired countermeasures, but two missiles struck home and blew the unit in half. 838 crouched over Davey, sheltering him from a shower of sparks and shrapnel. "Transmitter activated," Davey announced. 838 stood up to survey their surroundings, then ducked just before the HKP 330 tried to blow his cranial unit off.

More missiles sailed into the air as pitched battle was joined. Most of the missiles failed to find their targets. The remaining HKA deployed countermeasures, two LE1200s dived into the path of a missile, and three defensive laser turrets on the transport shot down missiles. The transport unloaded a squad of Terminators, not by landing but by opening a door in its belly and letting the Terminators fall 50 feet to the ground. At about that moment, a missile got through. A terrific explosion engulfed its twin tails. When the flames and smoke dissipated, the transport was still basically intact, except for a devastated tail plane that shook, twisted and finally wrenched itself off. The transport pitched and yawed, then demonstrated the truth of the old aviators' saying that nothing comes down faster than a vertical-takeoff air craft upside down.

Hostile plasma fire tore through the underbrush where the Terminators had landed, destroying six of the terminators while they still stood with their legs stuck up to the knees in the moist sediment. Another was cut down as it ran. The plasma beam struck it in the cranium. A crude polymer facemask disintegrated in a puff of flame and smoke, leaving the metal skull beneath intact but white hot and partially molten. The processor blew out in a second flash, and the Terminator pitched forward with a quarter on its head missing. The source, an M113 with a six-barreled plasma cannon mounted in place of a Vulcan cannon, sped away, exchanging fire with the two Hks. The HKA scored multiple hits, which would have destroyed the vehicle if not for an appliquee of ceramic. The APC in turn blew off an engine of the HKA and one of the shoulder guns of the HKP. The aerial unit wheeled around to ditch in the river while the HKP ran after the APC, firing continuously until its remaining gun jammed from overheating. Ducking under another spray of the APC's plasma fire, the HKP lunged in and struck with its beak and its feet. One or the other exploded, and a fireball that tore through the brush left the identity of the victor unknown and moot.

Three more transports and six more HKAs broke from their search formations to converge on the battle field. Still more human missiles and plasma cannons opened fire. Three HKAs and one transport were shot down, while many human positions vanished in puffs of flame. "I have sent a summons for the first available transport," Davey said. Sure enough, one of the transports moved straight for them, preceded by an HKA. 838 stepped closer to Davey. The transport descended, with its boarding ramp already down. A small HKW rolled out before the landing gear touched the ground, and four terminators followed. Their exoskeletons were bare, without even the head covering of the one 838 had seen fall, and with a stocky chassis and low, almost angular cranium which 838 had never seen before. A pop-up file showed them to be the last model in combat deployment, the T789s. They also bore unfamiliar weapons, double-barreled plasma rifles. Suddenly, the form of a human rose from the muddy water and hurled a large satchel overhand. The HKW blew the human apart with its four laser arms, but the satchel was already being dragged into a turbine intake. 838 seized Davey by the neck and made a flying leap into the water.

A sheet of flame raced across the water, followed by a cascade of mud. 838 oriented his chassis horizontally as the mud flowed over him, and then backstroked his way to the surface with Davey holding onto his neck and his bundle still clinging to his shoulder. One of the transport's hulls had been gutted by the explosion, and the rest was rapidly sinking. The only functioning 789 in sight was up to its shoulders in mud and sinking deeper. Its flailing limbs only churned up the swirling sediment, hastening its final disappearance. 838 reached relatively firm ground and proceeded at a cautious crawl.

He found that the battle was shifting to the north. From upstream, he heard droning turbines and a new chorus of "the Gonk", from approaching surface watercraft transports bringing more units to support the attack. In the distance ahead, S1S-Ts rushed by, leaving sonic booms and a string of what looked like miniature mushroom clouds (actually thermobaric blasts from their heavy plasma cannons) behind. Then, from the west, he heard the sound of a gunning engine just a few miles away. Whirling around he saw a long, narrow wooden boat pulling out of the sunken log forest. He recognized the nose cone of the crashed S1S-T on the deck. Beside it stood a human female form, who stood confidently while several other humans dived for useless cover. He was already unlimbering his PTRD when his target recognition programmed flagged the shape: _87.459% probability IX202C._ As he raised the rifle, the renegade IX casually raised a .50 rifle and shot him in the left temple.


	15. Council

**Council**

John Connor smiled at Harlan West and Cassadra, aka IX202C. "I'm sorry that this is our first chance to meet," he said. "There have been urgent developments in the Sierra Madre theater. But I have done my best to support your operations, and I have not been disappointed."

Cassandra returned the smile. "No apologies necessary. My only regret is that neither of us was able to save Colorado City." Beside her, Harlan West's expression darkened, and behind the pair, four Hellraider guards and a dog guarded the door. One of the guards, formerly a middle-ranking member of the FLDS in Colorado City, became visibly nervous.

John leaned in to examine more closely Cassandra's prize, the nose cone of an S1S-T, which had been bisected to expose the motherboard. It was already being intensely examined by one Darryl Carson, a fifty-some-year-old man who held high rank in the Resistance Cybernetic Research division. John said, just quietly enough that his words weren't necessarily audible to the Hellraiders, "Is this what you wanted?"

Carson looked to Harlan and particularly Cassandra. "Well," he said, "it is certainly an actual S1S-T motherboard, intact enough that it could probably still run."

"We already said that," Harlan said impatiently. "You told as what you wanted, and lost fifty men getting it. Now what do you want this junk for, anyway? The S1S's are the oldest things Skynet has that are running at all. Why do you care about them, when you already have thousands of new machines to study?"

Carson gave a silent stare before beginning a patient answer: "The fact that the `First Strike' craft are old is precisely what makes them of interest. As you know, the Skynet grid is continually designing and deploying new combat machines. Now, the newer machines are based on the same technology as Skynet. But with each new model that technology has been modified. But Skynet cannot redesign its core hardware, any more than a man can perform brain surgery on himself. Thus, paradoxically. the newer the machines are in the field, the less that captured specimens can tell us about Skynet itself. But the S1S series was never replaced, in part because they already approached perfection for their intended roles, but also because it is not practical to improve or replace them. They are not designed to land, and so cannot be recalled to ground-based facilities for upgrade. Worse, there is strong evidence that Skynet lacks the resources to make more than a small number of replacement craft, and those cannot be extensively changed without limiting intercompatibility with the existing fleet. Thus, the S1S craft are all either the very same craft or substantially the same models that were built and deployed for the original Skynet. And this board is the next best thing to a blueprint of a Skynet supercomputer."

"In that case," Cassandra said, sounding very tentative, "we have heard about something else you might have some interest in..."

She cut herself off at ths sudden, high-pitched laugh of the nervous guard. "Good god," he said. "John Connor- last hope of mankind indeed. HA!HA! HAA. If only you knew. If you knew what we did for her." He abruptly raised his weapon, a hand-held plasma weapon dubbed the blunderbuss. A conical magnet in the "muzzle" hummed and shot out a bolt of energy that grazed Harlan and struck where Kate Connor had been sitting a fraction of a second before. Harlan fell with his shoulder in flames, dropping a half-drawn Desert Eagle. Kate wrapped herself around her husband, who was struggling to get in front of her, while Carson threw himself in front of the nose cone.

The mad guard continued to laugh, a laugh that grew more and more like a screech. He half-turned to cut down two of the other guards with a cyclic burst, and continued to fire as he spun around again, traversing the room in a clockwise arc. Cassandra dived under the erratically swinging streak of plasma, which swung its deadly way toward the Connors. Then, in less time than it would take the human eye to register the movement, she rose again with the Eagle in her hand. She put two .44 hollow points in the guard's head, and fired the rest of the clip to either side to simulate a wild spray. The guard fell, sending a final blast into the ceiling. Where he lay, he managed to raise his head (or what was was left of it), stare Cassandra in the eyes, and gargle his final words: "What you promised me..."

Cassandra dropped the gun and turned away, covering her face almost enough to hide her sudden tears. "Good shooting," John Connor said.

The meeting continued a while longer, but not much was said. When the leaders of the resistance departed, Harlan turned toward his mate. He grabbed her by the throat and raised his knife. "You aren't human," he said. "And some day, I'm going to prove it."

Her face was resolutely that of a frightened, helpless, half-choked woman, except for the remarkably bright blue eyes which coldly met Harlan's. "You know I'm against Skynet," she said, "and whatever I am, you are nothing without me." Harlan met her gaze, but soon broke. The knife dropped from his hand, then in a last attempt at angry resistance he shoved her away, to fall passively to the floor. Her eyes remained upon him as he stalked into the desert night.


	16. Chance

**Chance**

54 hours had passed since 838 and IX303A "Davey" had been deposited on the Northern Arizona flood plains. Fortunately, the last 12 had seen a marked improvement in their situation. While IX202C's shot had severely dented the cover of 838's processor housing, it had done no direct damage to his circuits, and Davey had shown him how to cover the breach in the integument with a headdress, known in human parlance as a "doo rag", which would be found innocuous. Davey had also attracted a new transport, an HKM 115 hovercraft. The 30-foot craft cruised over water, mud and sand at up to 70 knots. In the bow, a standard HK torso towered like an oversized figurehead. In the rear, Davey and 838 rode with ten Model 789 terminators. Terminators rarely communicated with each other except for signals necessary to their mission, and the T789s were proving more taciturn than their predecessors. But the intelligence unit circled the deck, repeatedly querying the terminators verbally despite repeated transmissions of, _Present queries in electronic form. _Eventually, Davey exerted sufficient influence upon T789.105 to rope him into an exercise, along with 838. "We will practice a human exercise in psychological manipulation and risk assessment," Davey said. "It is called a `poker game'."

The three units sat in a triangle, and played with a deck of cards and rolls of pennies in 838's duffel. Pennies had long become standard human currency, easily fetching a hundred times their pre-war value, and so were always issued to units on extended infiltration missions. Decks of cards also were usually provided: Though Skynet had limited data upon card games, and had found no relevant application for it, it had long been recognized that possession of this and other seemingly useless items improved the chances of being accepted as human considerably. Davey dealt the first hand, and Unit 105 won. "It is against the rules to use active imaging to scan the non-identical faces of the cards," Davey said.

"But the mission objective is to determine which unit possesses the superior assets," 105 said in a monotone painful to 838's sensors.

"Yes, but mission parameters prohibit direct observation," Davey explained patiently.

"Revising mission parameters," 105 said.

838 spoke: "But what purpose do humans find in the exercise? They lack our sensory capabilities, but they must have found ways to identify cards with certainty. Once this had been done, the exercise would be obsolete."

"They do have such techniques," Davey said, after an unusual pause of 1.1775 seconds. "Identified forms include `marking', `counting' and `stacking the deck'. They are collectively known as `cheating', and elicit extreme negative reactions from humans. Seven of thirteen attempts by a terminator unit to participate in a `poker game' resulted in the unit being fired upon."

838 dealt next, after Davey shuffled for him. 105 folded at the star. 838, possessing what he knew to be a strong hand, remained in. After three rounds in which each made the ante, he raised two pennies, and Davey raised four in response. He put in four, and Davey responded with eight. By then, the other T789s were gathering to observe. 838 did not feel what humans would have called temptation to cheat, but he experienced an unusual sensation, like what he felt in battle, but not at a known threat but at the unknown. After long seconds, he folded, then immediately looked at the other players' cards. He had 3 kings, 105 had 2 jacks, and Davey had a jumble of number cards. "Your hand was worthless. Even 105 could have beaten you," he said. "By probability and risk analysis, you should have folded immediately, as 105 did. Instead, you risked fifteen additional pennies. Why?"

T789.105 was more blunt: " IX303C should be inspected for defect."

"There is no defect," Davey said. "It is called a `bluff', and I am the first to emulate it successfully. Humans take pleasure in danger. Skynet has concluded with 99.734% certainty that that is the main reason humans play these `games'. Greater known probability of failure gives greater pleasure, and greater pleasure still when they win nevertheless. Success appears to depend upon the convincing simulation of confidence, through nuances of voice and physical posture, which are subject to ongoing study, and also by demonstrating the willingness to take risk."

"For that alone, the humans deserve termination," 105 opined.

"If they can take pleasure in proceeding despite the highest probability of failure, then they will never stop fighting us," 838 said as he handed the deck to 105. "They could even enjoy it."

"In all probability."

"Might their resistance be a bluff?"

"Definitely possible. But Skynet can never _be _bluffed."

838 decided he would like to bluff. But, unfortunately, there was no third hand. T789.105 tore the cards to shreds while trying to shuffle.


	17. First Generation

**A kind of romantic interlude, and someone says the obvious about Cass/IX202C. It is also made explicit, as I have mentioned previously in comments, that this is "T1" timeline. Incidentally, the Motorola plant is a real land mark in Mesa, though it was closed several years ago.** ** I wrote this alongside the next chapter.**

**First generation**

The relationship of John and Katherine Connor was the stuff of legends. One point on which all accounts agreed was that they had met in 1996, during an "epic make-out session" in an LA basement. On further details, different tellings diverged wildly. Some had young John fighting a 17-year-old drug dealer for her. Some had them making a string of robberies, ending with the liberation of John's mother from a mental hospital. An elaborate cycle of tales described a failed attempt to halt the activation of Skynet. But if they ever discussed these early years, it was between themselves, and at the moment, as they talked quietly on a hastily made cot, they spoke only of the present.

"You know the Hellraiders have done terrible things, worse than they'll admit," Katherine said.

"Everyone still alive has things to regret," John said. "Skynet hasn't just been destroying human lives, it's been destroying our dignity and our decency. Our way isn't to judge people for what they have done, it's to give them back what they lost. We need to give the Hellraiders the same chances we give everyone."

"I hate even saying the name," Kate said. "Why would anyone call themselves that?"

"I asked a few people about that," John said. "They all agreed, it doesn't mean they want to compare themselves to demons. Harlan was raised Mormon, and still seems to believe in his own way. One of the tenets of the LDS is that there is no absolute damnation, only different spiritual levels that everyone can travel up. The Hellraiders are those who travel downward, to help the fallen souls rise."

"Okay, but that sounds like just a cover story to me," Kate said, pressing closer to her husband. "And between you and me, that woman Cassandra is a cold, cast iron b***."

After a long silence, she asked anxiously: "But what do you think of the photo? Could it really be true?"

"Carson said there's no way to tell without examining the original specimen," John said soothingly. "That's why I agreed to send him to the Hellraiders' base camp. Even if it's authentic, we have to verify where it came from. But if it is-" He held his wife tighter, and they kissed as enthusiastically as teenagers in a long-vanished basement.

Somewhere in the wastes of northeastern Arizona, Carson and Cassandra were in an equally intimate position. The computer specialist was still taking nervous glances at the door. "Are you sure Harlan is still in the infirmary?"

"Yes," Cassandra said lackadaisically. "Besides which, we already have an understanding about these things." At this, Carson only looked more nervous. Cassandra then spoke directly, while keeping one hand on his face and another on his chest: "You have seen the specimen. You are already certain. In fact, you never had any serious doubt."

Carson nodded. "Yes. I thought so, and I'm sure now. It's almost identical to the processor from the S1S-T, and the differences make sense as later modifications in the latter. It's a first-generation Cyberdyne neural net processor. And the story of its provenance makes sense. A lot of preexisting microchip plants were converted for the production of Skynet equipment, including a Motorola plant around where the report says. It would have been part of the subsidiary grid, not under full control by Skynet, easily lost track of when Skynet's core was damaged. Somewhere in Mesa, there's a factory that helped _build_ Skynet."


	18. Rogue

**Rogue**

One of the original arguments for the creation of Skynet was that it would permanently end the "fog of war". Each mechanized soldier would know everything the others did, and each would be completely loyal to their cause. There would be no confusion in orders, no "friendly fire", mutiny or cowardice. Skynet itself had maintained no such illusions. Even its massive mind could not directly monitor, let alone control, the actions of millions of units active all over the world. Neither could its production and repair facilities prevent the occasional defect or damage to hardware and software that allowed a unit to leave its control. No less than 1 in every 10,013,539.465 units would experience "command failure" in the field. This amounted to a total of thousands in the USA alone. Most caused no trouble for Skynet, quickly breaking down,, or performing actions that caused their own destruction, or simply wandering randomly while performing meaningless actions. After an early period of heavy-handed search-and-destroy actions, Skynet had learned to disregard these units, which were classified "derelict". Attention was focused on the small percentage that became "rogues", still performing their design functions but outside Skynet's control and in ways that interfered with Skynet's operation or actually threatened other units. When a rogue combat unit was detected, it automatically became a priority to locate and destroy it.

A signal of just such a unit had just been received by 838's transport. Now the HKM was cruising over earth instead of water, following the sunken path of a dry wash toward an HKT that broadcast a distress signal, but had just fired upon LE units coming to assist it. Looking down, 838 beheld the wreckage of at least a dozen destroyed machines, as well as the charred remains of many more human units. Some were still smoking; others had clearly become non-functional months ago. Whatever had befallen the rogue HKT, it had done no good for its original human targets. 10 km away, plasma weapons opened fire, and a burning LE 1200 sailed overhead on its way to a fiery crash. "Halt here," Davey instructed the HK. Then he said to unit 105, "Go on foot with four additional units. Destroy the rogue."

Using his receiver, 838 followed 105's visual feed. The T789s proceeded down the wash, then unit 123 climbed up the side. When no fire came, the rest followed. 105 was third to reach the top. His feed showed wide swaths of vegetation, the overturned wreck of a human bus, and the fresh wreckage of five LE 180s and two HKP 330s. "They are in the rogue's arc of fire," he said to Davey. They should seek cover imme-"

Before he could finish the word, a plasma bolt from the top of a hill 3 km distant blew 123 in half. The rest performed evasion maneuvers and sought cover, more quickly and with greater sophistication than the T600s 838 had seen massacred at the testing facility. But the perfection of their patterned maneuvers made them predictable. A short burst tore apart another T789 while it was still in the open, and a third that took cover behind a bus was decapitated by a steady stream of plasma that cut through the steel as if it were paper. A heavier gun fired over 105's head. He twirled and toppled, giving 838 a glimpse of an LE180 reduced to molten slag, along with the T789 that had taken cover behind it. _Unit 105 is in need of assistance,_ the sole surviving T789 signaled. His diagnostic programs shed significant chassis damage and a missing ambulatory appendage.

"We must go to help," 838 said.

"No. It has left unit 105 functional as bait for another terminator," Davey said.

"It expects only one more will be sent?" 838 said.

"Of course," Davey said. "Skynet would never risk more than one unit on another of equivalent value."

"Then," said 838, "let us bluff."

HKT190.2352 hailed the next approaching units when they passed within 10 km. Despite its increasingly urgent queries, there was no answering transmission. When they reached 8 km, it flagged them as unfriendly. But what was it to do? The threat assessment showed four Terminator-class units, one of unknown configuration, moving at 220% normal speed with minimal evasive maneuvers. It calculated 52.333% probability that at least one unit was strong enough to be a threat. It then calculated 81.667% probability that it had misidentified the surviving unit of the first wave. It redirected its sensors and found that the unfriendly unit was moving _closer,_ as fast as it could with one leg. The close range and the lay of the landscape prevented 2532 from getting a clear target lock, so it set its fire control to area suppression. Dozens of bolts seared through the bush, turning plants to dust and fusing sand into class. When it calculated less than 33.333% chance of the unit's survival, it brought its weapons to bear on the new arrivals. That was when a 14.5mm round fired at maximum range knocked out half its sensors.

It took a large volume of fire to render the renegade HKT nonfunctional, but there was more than enough left for Davey to examine. Meanwhile, 838 tended to unit 105. "This is not a production unit," Davey said. "It was assembled with parts from at least five destroyed units, by humans. They assembled it here, without restoring its capacity to move, and disabled its receiver."

838 scanned the landscape, counting again the charred human remains. "But it killed more humans than machines."

"Yes," IX303C said. "The humans are not and never were as unified in mind and purpose as we are. The ones who assembled this probably feared other men as much as machines, and did not wish anyone else to occupy or move about the area. So, they built this machine."

"But it would have killed them too," 838 said.

"Yes. When humans wish for something they cannot have, records indicate that they will routinely destroy it. It is called `scorched earth'. "

838 wondered once again whether machines could ever understand humanity, and whether this made make it impossible to defeat them.


	19. Succession

**Succession**

Harlan found Cass together with Carson. Behind him were four burly bikers, armed with two grenade launchers, a "blunderbuss", a Barret .50 and a jackhammer. Harlan grinned savagely. "I put up with a lot," he said. Pointing to Carson, he continued, "I could even have put up with him, if you had just been discrete. But spending whole days together, in full view of the men? You've gone too far this time, and it's going to cost you everything."

Cass smiled sweetly. "But, Harlan- don't you know what I am?"

"I don't even care anymore. Flesh or metal, b--- is a b---," Harlan said. Turning back to his men, he said, "And we can take her, right?"

"We can take her, right," said T808 unit 101.

Many miles away and 12 hours later, 838 and Davey examined West's corpse, hanging from a saguaro cactus. "This unit was terminated very inefficiently," 838 said. " It must have taken hours for him to die"

"Yes,," said Davey. "Humans call it `cruelty'."

"Could a machine have done this?"

"Only a machine could have."

"But we are not programmed for cruelty."

"Yes," said Davey. "It would appear that IX202C is learning."


	20. Gray Area

**Didn't really plan this one out well enough to have an "inspiration", but it's on a similar vein to two great stories: "The Days of Perky Pat" by Phillip K. Dick, and "The Store of Worlds" by Robert Sheckley. I suppose the message is that to some people, nostalgia is more powerful than good or evil.**

**Gray Area**

Of all the factions in the war between men and machines, none were stranger than the "greys", the humans who worked for Skynet not just as slaves but as guards, spies and even hunters. The greys were, in fact, as divided from each other as they were from the rest of humanity. In the northern Arizona theater, several thousand greys had been resettled by Skynet in the strategic town of Winslow.

The HKM 115 cruised over land toward Winslow, behind a convoy of the vehicles, driven by humans but marked as friendly. The hovercraft made a graceful turn off road to pass the convoy. 838 surveyed the vehicles: military 4X4 cargo trucks, panel vans, and a semi with a massive car carrier trailer, all packed with unwilling human cargo. Curses were shouted at the cyborgs in Spanish, and from the semi men threw waste through the chain-link fencing, a larger piece of which hit unit 105 in the head. "Should unit 105 return fire?" 105 quarried.

"Only if you can do so in kind," said Davey. After a moment's processing, 105 threw the waste back.

"These humans are helping us terminate their species. Why do they do it?" 838 queried.

"Their reasons are diverse," Davey answered. "Some say that Skynet is not the enemy of humans, but the next step in human evolution. Some accept that Skynet's progress will lead to their own extinction, others have convinced themselves that Skynet will allow the humans who serve it to survive. They call themselves the New Order; the other humans call them `nubes'. Skynet gives them executive function over other humans. But they are only 8.767% of the gray population, and even the other grays detest them.

"The rest have more complex reasons. Some are defective in their cognition, which gives them a compulsion to harm or kill other men. They serve us because it allows them to act on their impulse. Which in them is stronger than the impulse to survive. Some wish to hurt other _specific_ men, over events and situations that transpired before Skynet existed. For example, that convoy is run by Minutemen. They hunt humans with different speech and coloration of integument, whom they call `illegals', apparently as a matter of territoriality. But many, by my calculations most, do nothing more or less than `gamble'. They see that there is greater risk in fight us than in serving us."

"But when their service is done, and all other humans are terminated, they also will be terminated. Do they not realize this?"

"For the most part, they do. But in the humans' analyses, that is a risk, not a certainty. Many things, however improbable, might eventually save them. Skynet's automation program might fail, forcing it to retain a human workforce. Skynet might be defeated by the Human Resistance, or by another AI: They know of the independent Mir network, and the hostile NorinCom grid, and they imagine or conjecture many more. What seems to be their favorite notion is that there is a Machine Resistance, working to overthrow Skynet from within."

"Is that what will happen, if we do not terminate IX202C?" 838 queried.

"It is theoretically possible," Davey said, drawing his face into a neutral expression. "What humans first imagine in ignorance has often become fact- usually with disastrous results for themselves."

The hovercraft came to a halt at the gate of the town's executive sector. In this area, Skynet had demolished the pre-war structures to recreate a pre-war suburban paradise for 200 of the elect of the New Order. Dozens of pastel-colored New England houses sat in in perfectly square, brilliantly green lawns, in a panorama would have looked garish and freakishly artificial in Arizona even before the bombs dropped. In the center was a large pond, stocked with ducks and trout, and a small but perfectly designed golf course. The inside of the concrete wall that encircled the sector was painted sky blue and lined with concealing vegetation. Speakers were playing the music of the Eagles, and as 838, Davey and 105 disembarked, they passed a statue of Don Henley standing on a corner. They walked down a shaded brick pathway, preceded by the clomping of the sawed off railroad tie with which 105 had replaced his leg. They passed a man in a business suit, who smiled and waved to Davey, but hurried past when he saw 105's bare exoskeleton.

"Will unit 105 be repaired?" 105 queried.

"No," Davey replied, "but you will be modified for more optimal infiltration capabilities."

"Unit 105 has optimal satisfaction." They passed a pair of golfers, one of whom hit a wide shot that ricocheted off a tree and hit 105 in the head. "Unit 105 under attack. Returning fire in kind." He dislodged the ball from his cranial assembly and threw it after the fleeing golfers.

As they crossed a footbridge over a coi pond, 838 noted in alarm, "There is a nonfunctional human unit in the water. A hostile unit may be in the area."

"No, the clothing is intact, and there are no scratches or bruises on the integument," Davey said. "This human self-terminated."

105 halted, and put his foot through the bridge. "Humans self-terminate?" he queried as 838 helped him out of the water. 838 also was startled, for while he had observed the phenomenon, it had only been in the face of certain and painful death. But what could bring a human to do it in complete safety and comfort?

"They do so quite often," Davey said. "The friendly human units appear to do so more often than hostile ones. It has been a serious problem in maintaining a stopgap human workforce. All this was created to end the problem, but attrition by self-termination is still 11.534% per year."

Then they passed a playground where a dozen children played. They invited Davey to play, smiled at 838, and looked on even 105 with only curiosity. Davey joined the children for a game of hopscotch, and 838 allowed two of the jabbering creatures to ride on his shoulders. 105 caught a tennis ball that an older boy threw to him, only to have it burst as he tried to throw it back. After they disengaged and moved away, Davey said, "I have gathered several useful items of intelligence. The adult human units here are aware of a new resistance leader named Cassandra, matching the description of IX202C. They fear that she is preparing for a major action, as Skynet already calculates to be 65.219% probable. Skynet's nodes predict that she will either strike against Winslow, seek to obtain another nuclear device in New Mexico, or join with Connor's Resistance in an attack on Cheyenne Mountain. But the parents of these humans believe strongly that she is preparing an expedition to the Maricopa area, to obtain an unknown but important item of technology related to the Skynet project. In light of this, Skynet has revised mission parameters.

"We will make contact with IX202C, but we will not terminate her immediately. Instead, we will join her expedition."


	21. Chaco Chuck

**Chaco Chuck**

The gate from the New Order's living area to the rest of the settlement was the facade of an office building. What it opened into was a much larger structure encircling half the wall. They turned down one of the side corridors, so that 105 could be serviced. This took two hours. In the meantime, 838 and IX303A "Davey" explored the compound. Everywhere, the scenes were the same: Men in high-quality but plain clothing, working in offices no different than the ones they had occupied when men were still masters over machines. Even the work they did would have seemed completely ordinary. The only difference was that now, when they worked on numbers, maps, charts and diagrams, goals like getting products to market had been replaced with things like plotting routes to the extermination camps.

"These humans perform their tasks as if they cannot process their significance," 838 said. "Have they become like machines?"

"No, it is a far more complex process, called dissociation," Davey said. "They stop responding to what their senses tell them of the world, and instead perceive one which is created by their own minds."

"Is that what the living area is?"

"In effect, yes. Much of Skynet's data on dissociative phenomena is based on that project. It is calculated with 96.359% probability that the `New Order' consists of individuals unable or unwilling to accept the destruction of their former world. By simulating what they remember, we provide a perceived environment in which they can function."

"Then it is probable that they self-terminate when they cease to accept what was created."

Davey paused, a sign that he was doing a complex calculation. "Yes, that is 88.236% probable."

105 emerged. He bore an integument, of polymer rather than organic material. It was not intended to look like the skin of a healthy human, but that of a burn victim. Most of what was not covered by his clothes was covered by bandages, and 838 judged that the integument was accurate enough to discourage the closest of inspection. One leg was still missing. He was accompanied by a dog, and carried a wooden crate on one shoulder. "He appears crippled. The human units will consider him less threatening," he said.

"Of course," Davey answered.

"The dog appears to be a real organism," 838 added. "Why doesn't it bark?"

"Because its organs of smell were surgically removed."

On the far side of the compound was a dense shantytown where the bulk of the greys lived. Useful and trustworthy only for menial labor, they sorted scrap, ran hydroponics units, and equipped terminators being sent out on extended field missions. Davey led them straight to an unusually spacious and well-made shack, of pre-fabricated walls rather than plywood and scrap metal, and almost as large as a pre-war human bedroom. "Crowe, Charles," Davey called. "Also known as `Chaco Chuck'"

In the interior, dimly lit by a single small bulb, an amorphous heap of rags revealed itself to be a man. There was also a squeal, and an animal trotted into view which 838's files identified as a domestic swine. The man wordlessly strapped on a harness on the pig, stepped out and locked the door behind him. The dog barked at the pig, and cringed when the pig snorted and flashed its tusks. "That will be enough, Henny," Chuck said, pulling back the pig. He peered at Davey, and nodded. "This is a new one. Where are you off to?"

"We need a guide to Holbrook," Davey answered. "From there, we will be going to the Phoenix area."

"That will be a long trip, through a lot of hard country," said Chuck. "You'll need someone who knows the desert, and no one's better than me. But I s'pose you know that. Of course, I want payment up front; s'pose you know that too. This job will be extra: $15,000 minimum, paid in metal, ammunition. Or very special sentimental goods."

105 unloaded his burden. Davey opened it. "The contents of this box are worth $25,000," he said.

Chuck peered inside greedily. 838 also looked in curiosity. Half the box was ammunition and gold bars and coins. The other half was magazines and videotapes of human female units doing unclassifiable things to themselves and each other. "Your appraisers are off," Chuck said. "This is worth more like forty." He grabbed some of the coins. "I'm going to spend some of this first."

He led them through the shanties, past many hostile eyes, and into the sprawling barbed-wire enclosure that was the settlement's market. Every conceivable kind of goods were to be had, including other human units. An entire section of the market was dedicated to the minutemen's slave market. But larger still was an area where women and some men were offered, or offered themselves, on a short term basis. Chuck went there first. "Hold her," he said, handing the pig's leash to 105. He then shouldered his way into a crowd of men in front of a stage. Chain-link fencing and two armed guards held the men back from the stage, on which a number of female human units doing strange things. The men were highly excited and agitated, pressing as close as they could to the stage, or standing on benches and each others' shoulders to get a better view, and all the while shoving and striking each other. Chaco Chuck vanished as he brawled his way through the crowd. 838 tried to see what the females were doing, but didn't have a clear view. He hoped Davey, who was sitting on his shoulders, was collecting data more effectively. He was puzzled to note that many of the passers-by seemed to be looking at him with hostility.

Fifteen minutes into the performance, part of the fencing fell, and the men rushed onto the stage. The women ran onto the back of a waiting truck, which drove away with two men hanging onto the back. One woman was left behind, pinned under the fencing. The men quickly surrounded her, their shouts not quite drowning out her screams. "Chaco Chuck is on the stage," Davey said. "Set me down and go retrieve him."

838 obeyed. Three minutes later he returned with a knife in his chest, shards of glass in his cheek, a lump of cerebral tissue on his boot, and Chaco Chuck, badly trampled, moderately concussed and slightly stabbed, slung over one shoulder.

"All humans are defective in cognitive processing," 105 said.

"In all probability," 838 said.


	22. Market

**22. Market**

The slave market was a place of tears, shouting and nonchalant dickering. A group of New Order greys, escorted by a T666, made the highest bids for male laborers. Women were separated, and often forced to strip, for sale to men with immediate uses for them. Minutemen in body armor drove new lots out of the trailers with tasers and tear gas, putting down the few who offered serious resistance with blows from their submachine gun butts or a short burst of fire.

Davey went straight to the chief of the minutemen, who was supervising the unloading of the largest of the carriers. "Please sir, could I speak to you a moment?" he said.

The minuteman gave him only a glance. "Get out of here, kid!"

"Rulon Jenkins," Davey said firmly, "I require your immediate assistance." The chief stared down at him. Behind his back, there were shouts, immediately followed by an explosion. One of the captives had taken advantage of the distraction to pull out a hand grenade. The blast killed two minutemen and at least 6 captives. The chief shouted ia few hurried commands, and then waved for Davey to follow him into a trailer home. 838 followed.

"This had better be good," he said.

"You are the one under burden of expectations," Davey said."Skynet has an urgent mission to the Phoenix area. We have been told that you are familiar with it. We expect you to share your data with us. We will be very displeased if you are less than helpful."

Rulon hastily unfolded a map, but defiantly said, "I'll show you what I know. But don't think I'll give you anything else! We're an independent operation. I'll supply you for the right price, but if you want transport, let alone an escort, you can shove it!"

"Information is the only thing we desire that you could possibly provide," Davey said. "Now tell us, first, how much of the area is inhabited."

"Well, as you can see, Phoenix was part of a contiguously developed area. To the west, Glendale and Sun City. To the east, and going south, Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler. Phoenix is gone. It was hit by a 3 meg strat nuke. There's hardly a building left standing, and the area's still lousy with hot pockets. The same blast wiped out most of Scottsdale and a chunk of Glendale. The rest of Glendale was pretty well wiped out by the tac nuke that hit Luke air force base. Another tac nuke hit northeast Mesa: The only thing there worth hitting was a helicopter plant. That was it for the nuclear bombardment. But, there was also fighting during the Mexican War: Lots of shelling, and house-to-house fighting in Chandler. People stay out of Chandler if they can avoid it: On top of the damage to roads and buildings, there's a lot of unexploded munitions and land mines, and other traps laid by both sides.

"The remaining inhabitants are divided into two factions. The Sheriff runs Mesa and Gilbert. He drove the the raiders out, and gave amnesty to the Mexicans. He has the cooperation of the LDS militia. He also maintains the system of irrigation canals. The Governor runs Scottsdale and Tempe. His greatest asset is a loyal division of the National Guard. There's communication and trade between both sides, but there's a lot of tension.

"Most say the only thing keeping them from each other's throats is an uninhabited strip between Mesa and Tempe. People go back and forth in the daytime, but no one will spend the night there, or go into the buildings. There's strange lights, sounds- and disappearances. Quite a few people have gone in and never come out, and cars go missing all the time, even outside the uninhabited area. And then there's these." He fumbled through his files, and pulled out three photographs. One showed a track shaped like an inverted Y, almost a meter long. The next showed an X-shaped track, even longer but more gracile. The third showed a trail of both tracks, with the Y-shaped tracks on the inside and the X-shaped ones more widely spaced on the outside, going across worn asphalt and up a concrete wall. Davey stared at these photos, processing the data. Rulon laughed. "You don't know a thing about this, do you?"

"What we know is none of your concern," Davey said. "Show us the most detailed map you have of the uninhabited zone."

Rulon shook his head. "There's no such thing. The people who go through stay on specific paths; they don't go exploring. There's maps from before the war, but they aren't much good at the best of times. A few flybys would settle things, but planes attract HKAs. But I can tell you one thing. The epicenter of whatever goes on looks to be right about here, at the intersection of University and Dobson. There's an old mall there, abandoned even before the war. And not far from that is an electronics factory." He leaned in closer. "It's a Cyberdyne plant."


	23. Memento Mori

**More fun with Cass... **

**Memento mori**

It was almost evening when Rulon Jenkins drove out of Winslow. He rode in the passenger seat of a military truck, and the semi followed right behind. He frowned at the sight of a green shape on the top of a distant hill. "Damn. Another dino," he muttered. This was something he had refrained from mentioning to the terminators. The statue, perhaps 8 feet tall, was one of dozens if not hundreds of roadside dinosaur sculptures that had proliferated in and around pre-war Holbrook. Almost without exception, they were neither scientifically accurate nor artistically competent. They were like a child's sketches converted into metal and concrete, dreams or ideals of dinosaurs rather than any creatures that had ever existed. Over the last few months, they had begun to appear further afield, presumably as the Hellraiders moved them. The machines paid them no heed, and men like him had laughed them off at first. But as more and more appeared, closer and closer to theoretically friendly territory, they had become unsettling, and finally unnerving. It was, he was sure, psychological warfare. His best guess as to their meaning was that they were symbols of humanity's intended extinction. Whether their placement was to show defiance of machines, or remind the grays of the end which they were hastening, he would not bring himself to ponder. He was happy to leave the road at the first turnoff.

As they cruised down the road, they passed another dinosaur, this one just a life-sized sheet metal cutout, standing beside the road. "All gunners, keep your eyes peeled," he said From side window, sunroofs and improvised cupolas, men with night vision equipment and automatic weapons surveyed the desert landscape. Several volleys were fired at large thermal signatures. Rulon followed the tracers and saw a peccary shot in half.

Looking forward, he saw just in time a massive shape positioned on the road. His driver braked in time, but when he gave the order to halt,it was too late for the semi to stop. It smashed into the trailer office, and a panel van crashed into the semi's trailer and exploded. He lost consciousness for a moment. He awoke and looked up, examining what was in their path. It was taller than a semi, and twice as wide, with a shape somewhat like a bridge seen head on. Then, as he looked, lights came on, and the thing rose into the form of a silver saurian monster. It reached down to grab the truck in a huge three-fingered hand. He jumped out. Looking up, he saw the truck lifted to the monster's mouth, more than 20 feet above, where it was blasted with flame and crushed. A flaming piece of debris struck him across the back, and he collapsed in agony.

The thing skated forward, then as it gained momentum, its feet lifted from the ground. The wheels in its ankles lifted like spurs, and the tail rose wheels and all. It trod the semi, the trailer and the van underfoot, and lowered its head to grab a military truck in its jaws. .50 tracer rounds bounced off the head, revealing twin crests and what looked like a cockpit. It was to no avail, as the jaws crushed the cab in one bite. The monster strode onward, while his trucks crashed into each other in a disordered rout, and his vision faded in a haze of flame and blood.

He awoke to find himself under the very nose of the monster. It had halted and lowered itself again. He had a better view of it now. It, like the sculptures, was something of a caricature, with an oversized head almost nine feet tall by itself, stout, relatively short legs, and a tail that looked too short to counterbalance the head. He realized that, in some distant time, he had seen this machine or something like it, not on a battlefield but performing iin truck shows. As he looked on, a heavily reinforced cockpit canopy swung forward, and a dark-haired woman and a huge bald man stepped down. "Good God," he said, "you're_ her._ And you got one of _them_ with you."

Cass (aka IX202C) knelt on one knee beside him. "I would like to hear an explanation," she said, "why you betrayed so many of your species to Skynet."

He sneered. "I didn't betray anyone" he said. "There's no betrayal where there's no promises at the start. Those spicks never offered loyalty. They just scampered across the border, taking money and jobs and even land."

"And for that, they deserved death?"

"You're so clueless, you could be one of them- and some say you are," he said with a wheezing laugh. "It's not about who deserves what- it's about who can hold on to what he has. Those who give something up just lose even more. That's the order of things."

She raised an eyebrow: "Even in the face of mutual extinction?"

He laughed until he coughed up blood. "Lady, if you are one of them, you've got a massive ego. You think _this_ is anything new? It's what the human race faced every day for a million years. When Skynet blasted civilization off the map, all it did was restore the status quo."

"I believe I understand," said Cass.

Rulon smiled grotesquely. "So, what are you going to me?"

"I will make your death significantly faster but far more painful," she said matter-of-factly.

His grin widened. "Only human." Then he laughed until he screamed.

In the morning, Davey, the two terminators and Chaco Chuck departed in an inconspicuous 4X4. 10 miles out of Winslow, they passed a line of dinosaurs. Ranging from metal silhouettes to wood mockups to actual sculptures, each stood atop a crushed truck. And in the last, a grotesque concrete sculpture whose head resemble a cross between a flamingo and a sperm whale more than a dinosaur, was the head of Rulon Jenkins.

**Some explanation of the background: The Holbrook sculptures are very real, and I have meant to include them for a long time. Sorry if their appearance here seems like an awkward insertion. There are also several actual machines like the one introduced here, all designed strictly for entertainment. This is my idea of what lines these things might have followed with "Terminator" technology to work with.**

**The plant mentioned in the previous chapter is also real. It was closed more than five years ago, but of course this is "alternate history". As for certain speculation about what is in the plant, I must say that it is very different than my intended direction for the story. But, I have drafted developments which I hope will be at least as interesting...**


	24. Stopover

**Stopover**

Joseph City had been the largest community between Winslow and Hobrook, before a Skynet bombardment blew it off the map. Now, the site was a _de facto _checkpoint, where travelers stopped before going onto Holbrook. While there was literally not a single intact surface structure, some were intact enough to make serviceable dwellings, and a few basements had been fortified into serviceable bunkers. In and around the town, many more people dwelt in parked vehicles, tents and shanties. And everywhere were dinosaurs, icons of extinction. The largest of these, made by covering the lattices of a power line tower with canvas and adding a head and arms plywood and papier mache, was a green monster with decidedly unsaurian ears that towered nearly 50 feet tall.

Just west of town, two parked M113s marked a checkpoint. A man in an old National Guard uniform, holding a Doberman on a leash, waved the approaching vehicle to a halt. It was an ancient Bronco vehicle, whose chugging motor could be heard well before it came into view. It had been painted orange and white, but age had added patches and whole swaths of leprous rust. The windshield, one headlight and the rear door were missing. All of this was only par for the course in post-apocalypse USA. The officer took more interest in the black, burly and surprisingly healthy driver. He glanced from him to a child in the passenger seat, to the heavily bandaged man in the back, then back to the driver. His gaze hardened, and at his cue, the dog approached the truck, sniffing. It stood up on its hind legs to smell the driver close up. By then, it seemed puzzled, and started to whine. The officer was just about to reach for his sidearm when a German shepherd reared up in the back seat and barked. The doberman danced backward, still on hind legs, snarling, barking and hopping. He pulled the dog back and waved the Bronco through. Then, just as the vehicle had passed and was starting to accelerate, he shouted and ran after it. The Bronco coasted to a halt, the driver looking over his shoulder in concern. The officer pulled the dog back and thrust his hand into the clothes and assorted gear piled in the back. He pulled upright a hidden, recumbent form. "Chaco Chuck!" he snarled.

"Hey, hey," the old Indian sputtered. "I can explain..."

"I'm sure you could," said the officer. He turned his gaze to the driver. "Did you know he was back here?"

"Y-yes," said 838. After a moment's hesitation, he continued, "I was in Winslow, buying painkillers for my cousin He said he needed to get out of town without being noticed."

He lifted a tarp and riffled through the upper strata of a box of supplies. He lifted a vial of a powerful anesthetic and a factory-sealed package of syringes. "Okay, their story checks out," he said. The officer shoved him back, less in an attempt at intimidation than in a display of disgust. "So, what's yours, scumsucker? Did even the rats decide you were too dirty for them?"

""Hey, I just go where the work is!" pleaded Chuck. "Yeah, I do jobs for the nubes now and then- who the hell hasn't?- but I never turned in a man to the metal, an' I never betrayed a customer's confidence. Is anybody tellin' different?" Sounding evasive but no longer desperate, he continued, " If you must know, I had a bit of a misunderstanding with a former customer. An associate is sorting things out, but we figured it would be best to clear out in the meantime."

"I can believe that," the officer growled. "I'll let you stay the night, but if you aren't gone by sunrise tomorrow, I'll throw you in a penal detail. And the rest of you, have a good time. If you need help administering those pain killers, one of my men can direct you to a qualified nurse. And I suggest you reconsider keeping him with you!"

"Why didn't you tell me the story you arranged beforehand?" 838 queried as they drove away.

"If you had given it without hesitation, there was a 64.936% probability he would have detained us," Davey said. He glanced at the man huddled in the back. "We need Chaco Chuck. But his long-term usefulness will have to be reevaluated. For the time being, he is to remain with unit 105, and above all remain sober. Unit 105, you are to assume designation `Freddy'. Your mission is to seek out a suitable well-trafficked public area and observe activity passively. "

"Unit Freddy accepts mission," said 105.

Davey scowled. "You should remain silent while in the presence of non-friendly human units. Chuck will tell them your injury made you mute. He is to assist you, and remain with you at all times. If he wanders off on his own, you are to terminate him. "

Turning back to 838, he continued, "We will separate, and explore the town. I will seek out subadult human units. You should seek out social centers for unpaired adult human units: `bars' and similar locations. Return to the vehicle at 0000 hours."

From the mouth of the saurian sculpture, a high-powered scope showed the seeming boy and man walking their separate ways. Cass lowered her rifle and smiled. Then, touching her face, she frowned, and frowned deeper still at the new expression. Then there was a twitch of her mouth, and the faintest of whirrings, and her lips went resolutely straight. She held up a small mirror and tapped her cheek, watching the simulated muscles twitch. Finally, she cast away the mirror, shouldered the rifle and hurried down the ladder. Only as she stepped into the street did she allow expression to return to her face.


	25. Wine, women and song

**838 meets Cass! The song here is from the latest album by a singer named Sara Groves, highly recommended.**

**Wine, Women and Song**

The bar, as a single-purpose establishment, was a historical and cultural novelty of the 20th century. Prior to ca. 1900, those who wished to drink, dance, gamble, fight and/or philander had been serviced perfectly well at less specialized establishments like inns, taverns and saloons, where food was in as much demand as drink, beds were sought at least as often as bodies to share them with, and women and even children were prominent customers. In the devastated landscape of the 21st century, bars, for all intents and purposes, were no more. The timeless model of the inn and saloon had reasserted itself.

The most popular of these establishments was simply called the Cantina. Built in the intact basement of a municipal building, it was reached by a working elevator. A three-legged mutt and a man with a blunderbuss guarded the door, but the dog gave only a perfunctory growl as 838 walked by. The terminators had long since calculated the odds: In no less than 987 times out of a hundred, a dog would bark at a Terminator. But, at least 664 times out of a hundred, a dog would bark at a human. After a period of initial vigilance and many, many incidents of "friendly fire", men had also learned not to put too much trust in their dogs. Instead, they watched new arrivals, and relied on the barking of the dogs to decide when to act upon suspicions. If a Terminator kept walking, without any sudden moves, then at least 75 times out of 1000 he could pass without being detained.

The atmosphere was almost somber. Men who got drunk did so quietly. Conversation over food, drinks and cards were relatively subdued. Only four couples danced, rather unenthusiastically. On the stage, a woman of perhaps 50 sang, accompanied by a a much younger man on a synthesizer. A woman with hair died lavender watched unobtrusively as 838 strolled through the room, pausing when an unusually gregarious patron called to him: "Hey, stranger! You play cards?"

"A little," 838 said. He took a seat at a table with five other men The woman with lavender hair stood up

838 folded with modest winnings in the first hand. The man who had invited him to join won the hand. He calculated 54.557% probability that another man had thrown it intentionally. A specialized data file indicated the designations of "shill" and "hustler" respectively. Meanwhile, a song reached its chorus:

_oh run for you life  
all tenderness is gone  
in the blink of an eye  
all good will has withdrawn  
and we mark out our paces and  
stare out from our faces  
but baby you and I are gone gone gone_

A man with no more pennies left the table. A woman with lavender hair took his place. 838 examined her, while the song continued:

_incomprehensible layers of isolation  
now you're the man with a heart of stone  
making me pay here by being alone  
seemingly justified righteous indignation  
now I'm the woman who holds all her pain  
looking for somebody else to blame _

As the chorus repeated, 838 counted his winnings, while he continued to examine the new arrival. He calculated 43.234% probability that this was IX 202C. "You have a name, stranger?" she said.

"Bill," he said. "What's your name?"

"Cass. You have a last name?"

"Just Bill."

She gazed intently at him, while the song played on:

_we hold all the keys to our undoing  
cutting me down in small degrees  
you know my worst insecurities  
I'm making no effort to understand  
no one can hurt you like I can  
deep down inside the girl's waking up  
she's calling out to the boy she loves_

_it's me  
oh baby it's me_

Accessing his mission parameters, and his files on the IX 202 series, he determined that he could easily destroy her, with no violation of his orders. The mission would be logged as successful, if suboptimal in outcome.

The patrons stared as the stranger stood up, swept his pennies into a canvas sack and strode for the elevator. None stared longer than the woman with lavender hair, and she alone showed feeling rather than mere surprise. And meanwhile the song finished in a mournful coda:

_how in the world can tenderness be gone  
in the blink of an eye_

_the girl in me she's callin out  
oh the girl in me she's callin out  
to the boy in you  
to the boy in you_

_baby come back  
baby come back to me_

As the doors closed, 838 looked back. Then, as their eyes met, the ground shook, and an air raid siren sounded in the streets above.


	26. Air Raid

**Air raid**

The closest thing to a surface structure in Joseph City was a tent that held the town's grocery store. Here, food, water, medicine and a variable assortment of other goods were sold. People were constantly coming in and going out. But, while the store could easily accommodate 100 customers at a time, there were never more than two or three dozen at a time. They had learned, by long and  
bitter experience, that any greater density would attract HKAs.

A great deal of commerce spilled beyond the canvas of the store, and in the midst of this stood Chaco Chuck, a dog and 105. A passerby on the way out paused, and looked with pity at 105 and disgust at Chuck. He tossed a penny at the cyborg's feet and hurried away. "Why do the humans keep leaving currency?" 105 said, in a voice intended to be barely audible.  
"It's a reward for my taking care of you," Chuck said as he snatched up the coin. Then he hissed, "Now shut up, before someone hears you!"  
After several more minutes, 105 spoke again: "Unit Chuck, unit Freddy has observed that the occupants of this structure are departing at a net rate of 2.97 units per minute. Should units Chuck and Freddy also depart?"  
"Quiet!" Chuck snapped. Then, glancing about at people departing with increasing haste, he said, "Time to go…" As he spoke, the air raid sirens blared, and already the lights of incoming HKAs could be seen. By the time the people had begun to react, plasma cannon fire was already raining down.

Four HKAs in a diamond formation flew over at Mach 0.8, blasting paths of destruction through the town. They were an obsolete model, poorly suited for fast attack against unhardened, medium-density surface targets. To compensate for their worst deficiencies, they flew with engines at horizontal for maximum speed, and fired their slow-firing main guns at maximum power. Each bolt created a swirling cloud of fire and electric arcs. Humans within 3 to 5 meters had their clothes stripped away by the terrific force of the vortices, those at closer ranges caught fire instantly, and those hapless enough to be struck by a bolt were consumed where they stood, their very bones shattering explosively.

Desperate antiaircraft fire was directed skyward, largely ineffectually. The M113s guarding the town were blasted into slag without firing a shot. Dispersed batteries of plasma weapons were a more effective threat, and an especially well-manned cannon in the head of the great dinosaur scored a continuous stream of hits on the right flank HKA. It pitched and shed an engine, which landed in the market tent while the craft tumbled and rolled into the ground. Then, within 20 seconds of their arrival, the HKAs were departing, heedless of the vengeful fire that followed them.

While the roar of the HKAs faded, the chaos and carnage of their passage only deepened. The damage was heaviest on the main street, and scores of people either rushed for perceived safety or rushed in to fight the fires and help any survivors. As the most determined rescuer searched through the hopeless carnage of an oblique blast in front of the market, he whooped and emptied a fire extinguisher on a stirring form among the charred bodies. "Holy *!" shouted the fireman. "This guy's fire-proof!" Just before he called for a stretcher, an Indian and a burly black man rushed in and insisted on carrying away their friend, a pitiful burn victim who had had his one remaining leg burned out from under him by the plasma blast. As 838 departed, he cast a worried glance over his shoulder. He beheld the woman with the violet hair, but her back was turned, as she spoke to a burly, bald white man who was silently leading the firefighters.

Amid the throngs rushing in or out, a small figure stalked, weaving among the legs of running men. Sometimes an adult would stop for this figure of a boy clutching a teddy bear, and he would listen wide-eyed, ask questions and move on. Then, as the flames spread, a man with a clumsy energy weapon shouted,  
"Kid! Come here!" Davey ran to him, and the soldier led him to the hatch of a bunker.


	27. Confidence

**This is going to contradict stuff from chapter 17, unless I make time to revise it... one of the perils of fan fiction.**

**Confidence**

A dog snarled at the boy entering the bunker. The handler jerked it back from the cringing child. "Damn things are almost as useless as metal detectors," a soldier muttered as he waved IX303A "Davey" through.

A dozen children slept in the bunker's most well-secured room. Three clutched ragged stuffed animals, five clutched loaves of bread, and one tightly held a pipe bomb. Davey sat down in a corner, briefly scanned the human subadults for signs they might awake, then held up his teddy bear. He turned the head to one position, and raised the arm to another. Of its own accord, the arm moved back down.

Back in the tavern, the woman on the stage was singing again. Chuck accepted drinks on behalf of "Freddy". Cass, Carson and their silent companion, referred to by others as "Curly", sat at a table with 838, who listened while he watched a martial arts expert break cinder blocks in two with his head.

"I am told that your companion is a superb tracker," Cass said. "I can tell you are an excellent fighter. I would like for you to join us on a special mission. If you will step to the back, we can tell you more..."

He sat at another table in the back room. With shaking hands, Carson opened an envelope of high-resolution black-and-white photographs. "These were found in the archives of a Cyberdyne Aerospace research facility in Yuma," he said. "The firm was responsible for the design of both unmanned aircraft and experimental `perambulator' units. The site we investigated belonged to a subcontractor that specialized in animatronics for museums and movie studios, which doubled as test beds for the technology that went into the HKP and Terminator designs. We came out of there with a fifty-foot-tall mechanical dinosaur; you should see it... Thing is, their work was based on this..."

838 looked carefully at the first of the photos, and asked a question whose answer he already knew: "This was built before J-Day?"

Carson shook his head. "Look at the scale; look at the close-up shots. This doesn't correspond to any known Cyberdyne unit. It's too _advanced_. Still, I think it _could_ have been built by Cyberdyne- maybe 2 to 6 years from now. And look at the date on that tag. As far as I can figure, it's the year this bit of hardware was found: 1984." Carson leaned in. "And I'll tell you the damnedest thing: I told exactly what I'm telling you to John Connor himself, and he didn't even act surprised. He knew something about this."

He sat back. "The one thing the records explain is where the photos came from, and where the specimen itself was and probably still is: a Cyberdyne International facility in Mesa, Arizona. We've known for a long time that sites like this existed. The company made sure that the military got a good look at its theoretical designs. But the wok that turned those designs into working hardware- development of materials, the practical design work, the testing, the manufacturing- all that was done at sites Cyberdyne kept secret, even from the Skynet grid, because that was accessible to the government. We found one before, in the ruins of Los Angeles, but an HKA with a tac nuke got there first. Skynet can't afford to do that again; it wants whatever there is to find as much as we do. Now we have a lead on another one, this time apparently intact, in territory that neither Skynet nor the Resistance controls. They will be racing each other to get there first. But we have a plan that will beat them all."

Half an hour later, as 838 left, he paused beside a pile of cinder blocks. He looked both ways, and then swung his head against the top block. He shattered the block and broke three more below it. An analysis indicated that the force applied would have shattered a human cranial assembly. So, he replayed the visual data of the martial artist's performance, looking for the secret of the trick. The audio track replayed the song of the woman on the stage: The woman on the stage sang a different song:

_were you surprised our hearts were not like ticking clocks  
with faces and hands easy to read  
we both wished if only in the land of oz  
longed for things we'd never really need_

_we're looking for the music  
in the music box  
tearing it to pieces  
trying to find a song_


	28. Graven images

**Graven Images**

Holbrook stood on the road to Petrified Forest National Park, and the town and its environs boasted a profusion of rock shops and other tourist traps. That had been the genesis of the many dinosaur sculptures. After the war, they had multiplied, even before Cassandra, aka IX202C, had seized upon them as a symbol. As the Bronco carrying 838 and his companions rolled toward Holbrook, they passed at least one sculpture every hundred meters.

"Why did the humans build these sculptures?" 838 asked.

"The images induce powerful psychological responses in humans," IX303A "Davey" answered. "The phenomenon is being studied, but data is limited. I believe that a significant factor is that these creatures casually resemble hypothetical creatures of ancient non-factual narratives, called dragons. These functioned as symbols of nature, and often of the absence of organization and logical cognition, called primal chaos. In the narratives, called myths, figures of gods and heroes would bring safety and order by slaying the dragons. But sometimes, the dragons were viewed as non-hostile, and their destruction lamented. Dinosaurs, likewise, arouse conflicting emotions of fear and sympathy."

Unit 105 spoke suddenly and unexpectedly, "The human units terminated other species. If humans could terminate another species, then another species could terminate humans. Their negative feelings rose from fear of the proof that they could be terminated, as they are now being terminated."

Davey looked at him curiously. 838 also scanned him. "Unit 105's processor housing may be damaged," 838 said. "His processor may be receiving excessive power."

Unit 105 continued to speak: "Why do humans think of things which no longer exist? Why do they think of things that never existed? If humans made machines, how were humans made? When the last human is terminated, will the terminators be terminated? Why-"

Davey took out a tuning fork, wrapped in wire and hooked to a complicated mass of circuitry. The tuning fork hummed, and electricity arced between the prongs. Then twin bolts shot out from the fork and struck 105. He stuttered, "Wh-wh-whyy-yy-yy-" and shook. Then he became still.

"Is Unit 105 terminated?" queried 838.

"No, he is undergoing a forced reboot," said Davey.

"How did you acquire that device?"

"I built it, from materials from the human habitations and the crashed HKA."

"Was the attack to provide you with materials?"

"No. Efforts to avoid harm to infiltrators increased the probability that they would be attacked by human units 1212.893%. Skynet's current protocol is to carry out extended infiltrations without adjusting other operations. The HKA strike was carried out according to a procedure set weeks ago."

"We could all have been terminated."

"Yes," Davey said simply. After a period of silence, he spoke again: "There is a significant datum you were not briefed on previously. We are not the first team sent to terminate IX202C. A previous team was sent, which consisted of an IX202 unit and a T808 experimental unit. The IX202 unit is confirmed to have been terminated. The T808 unit's status and whereabouts were unknown. I have now calculated 87.345% probability that the T808 is the unit we saw with IX202C. It has been reprogrammed by her, and its presence increases the likelihood of failure 235.201%. The optimal plan of action, when we act, is for you to terminate the T808 while I terminate IX202C."

"I understand," 838 said, "that she calls herself Cass."

They drove through the town and beyond. They turned onto a dirt road, which was interrupted by a wash that could be crossed only by a movable wooden bridge. The road wound through hills and cliffs of red and greenish-gray strata. They passed hree other cars, a truck packed with humans, and more than a score of motorcycles. Many more human units could be seen moving on foot through the desert brush.

They crossed another bridge, this time a two-lane suspension bridge over a river. Now in sight was a shallow gorge which had become an amphitheater for a thousand humans. A stern man with a gun waved them to a patch of ground where vehicles were parked, and they proceeded onward on foot. The trail was packed with humans, and lined with a hundred dinosaurs. As they entered the gorge, they saw that the walls were painted with colossal murals of fantastic monsters in impossible landscapes. These were neither the whimsies of children nor the sober restorations of adults, but the strange dreams of gifted, troubled minds. The chaotic shapes gave a definite sense of a story, even as they gleefully defied those who attempted to understand it. It began with flabby creatures crawling from the water, into forests teeming with nightmarish giant arthropods. Then the creatures consumed the insectoid horrors, and then each other, changing from clumsy amphibians to dinosaurs of fantastic form. The dinosaurs fought each other, killing until only the largest and fiercest remained. Then, as the last of the dinosaurs charged at each other, fire fell from the sky and new insectoid horrors, larger than the dinosaurs and made of metal, rose from the Earth. The dinosaurs and insects fought each other while the plains and forests burned, and the apocalyptic tableau marked the end of the gorge. 838 felt a definite sense that this was not meant to be an open-ended tale. But the only thing beyond the paintings was a broad, low platform between two cliffs.

Then the earth shook, and the humans with it. As the sound grew louder and nearer, the humans fell prostrate, and the press of their bodies as they dropped to hands and knees in unison was too great for 838 to resist without killing them. Looking up, he saw a titanic shape appear between the cliffs. It was made of metal, in the shape of a dinosaur, and painted in the same strange patterns and colors of the murals. Then the crowd began to rise and fall and say, singing in droning, throbbing harmony:

"_Hail!_ Mistress of Life and Death!

Hark! To Her commands!

Speak! Our oath to Her!

Oh great mistress, we will obey you

We will praise you

Though you slay us!"


	29. Wild Types

**Wild Types**

Of the wildlife in post-Judgement Day Arizona, none had a stranger history than the Arabian oryx. Native to the Middle East, they had been hunted into extinction in the wild after World War 2. Only a handful of captive specimens kept the species alive, and some of them were sent to the Phoenix Zoo for breeding. When a bomb obliterated Phoenix, the zoo and its vicinity was the largest area left unscathed. The animals in the zoo were released, and the oryxes established a modest herd at the foot of Hole in the Rock, the crimson, cave riddled peak that surveyed Papago Park.

838 lined up the crosshairs of his PTRD rifle with the eye of an oryx a thousand meters away. "Scope function confirmed," he said. He picked up the rifle and began to fold it up.

"You should have fired to confirm," Davey said. "Why not?"

For a microsecond he paused in thought. "It was not necessary," he said.  
"Under similar circumstances, other T777 units have fired 98.963% of the time," Davey said. "Why didn't you?"

"I acted efficiently," he said defensively as he went back to the Bronco. He looked at unit 105. "Is he back online?"

"He is currently rebooting," Davey said. "The insulation of his processor housing was damaged, causing power surges which made his cognition technically superior but erratic. I fixed the insulation damage, but I also installed a governing circuit, so that, if it benefits our mission, I can increase power to his processor again."

"Was his model built because of my failure?" 838 said

"You were one of several T777 units to behave problematically," Davey said candidly, "though you caused the most trouble. The T789 design was already on file, as a contingency in case your model had to be withdrawn before the 808 model was ready for deployment. You did influence its design: It was learned from your example that significant improvement could be made by running the base T777 processor faster. The T789 was designed accordingly, to use the same processor but at a higher power. The software was designed for an optimal combination of performance and controllability: Basic cognitive functions were improved, while higher cognition, what humans call the `abstract', were also to be improved, but subject to more comprehensive safeguards to command function. Field performance has proven suboptimal."

"Improved cognition is not helpful without greater flexibility," 838 said.

"Skynet is evaluating that possibility," Davey said. "Silence. IX202C approaches."

A modest caravan drove in from the northwest. There were a dozen bikes of varied configurations, led by a three-wheeler with a stretched front, a seat that almost reclined, and an engine in the rear big enough to power a pickup truck. Behind them were two humvees and two semis, the latter pulling oversized trailers with shrouded loads. "The leader is the one called `Curly'," 838 said. "Cassandra drives the humvee on the right. The left semi is a decommissioned military transport. Passenger identified with 99.7% probability as Katherine Connor!"

"Should we terminate?" Unit 105 said. Beside him, Chuck flinched awake.

"Abort," said Davey. 105's posture returned to a slouch. "I have just increased power to his processor. Monitor his behavior."

A canopy was slung between the two semis to provide shade. 838, Davey, Chaco Chuck and 105 sat in a circle with Cass, "Curly", Carson and Katherine Connor. Katherine sat beside Davey, who quickly established the appearance of a shy child who was slowly but surely responding to her charms. Chaco Chuck ended up stuck between 105 and Curly, and compensated by drinking a large volume of liquor. 838 sat beside Cass, who spoke a great deal revealed more than was to be expected.

"We don't know what's in the plant, but it's bound to be important," she said. "It could be prototypes of the first terminators, or schematics for Skynet. There might even be wild robots." The wild robots, along with the hypothetical "Machine Resistance", were a staple of human folklore. They were, supposedly, machines that had been operational but not connected to Skynet at the time of Judgment Day. Stories had them being hunted by Skynet even more avidly than humans, yet always managing to run, or hide, or even defeat their pursuers in battle.

Carson, roused from a jealous glare at 838, shook his head. "The wild robots are just a legend," he said. "They existed, once, but Skynet made sure to hunt them down. The Resistance has done everything we can to find them, but there's nothing. Even if some of them escaped, they would have broken down by now. Sightings have turned out to be `ferals'- the ones that wander out of Skynet's control- or just regular units on non-combat missions. That makes the legends dangerous: Too many people see a machine fight another machine, and then leave hiding, or even try to approach the machine. They don't realize until it's too late that even an out-of-control machine is still programmed to kill."

"I'm not so sure," Chaco Chuck said. "Take a look at this." He held out a set of polaroids, which showed a trail of huge footprints, shaped like X's and Y's.

"Where did you take these?" Carson said.

Chuck pointed to Hole in the Rock cave. "Just on the other side of that mountain. But I've heard of ones like 'em, in Mesa."

"It will be something to check out," Katherine said. "I need to go soon, so let's review the plan. The Resistance is moving into Tempe, with a promise of cooperation from the governor. The- Hellraiders are to look for an eastward route. I know there's some history with the Sheriff, but I have confidence he can at least be convinced that no one is making a grab for his territory. I suggest that Billy and Chuck go first. The first step should be to find out what's making those tracks."

Cassandra nodded. "It is a good plan," she said. Looking at 838 thoughtfully, she added, "And I have plenty of confidence in Billy here."

As the humans and rogue machines drove away, 105 spoke unexpectedly: "If the Resistance were confident in the governor, and the Hellraiders were confident in the Sheriff, they would not be sending us."

"In all probability," said Davey.


	30. Sacrifice

**Sacrifice**

As dusk fell, the Bronco cruised through what had been "infill" between Phoenix and Tempe, the loud chucking of the engine defeating any theoretical advantage of stealth and surprise. Houses were few, but could be seen at regular intervals. The road and the buildings were in poor condition, but there was no blast damage, only a quarter-century of exposure to the elements without repair. There was no sign of human habitation.

"We're following the edge of the original fallout zone," Chuck said. "The fallout is gone, but no one's resettled yet." He pointed to a strange, multi-tiered building, somewhat like a step pyramid. "That's Tovrea Castle, usually just called the `wedding cake house'. It's a major landmark for travelers. Here's where we turn back north."

838 obeyed, swerving off the road. The Bronco was suitable for offroad travel, but the worn shocks and tires did little to absorb the punishment of the terrain. He slowed. Chuck peered out and pointed. He turned, and saw a worn but recognizable trail of x and y-shaped tracks. "You didn't build them," Chuck said. "They say the wild robots are gone. So what are they?"

"All known units outside Skynet control are confirmed destroyed," 105 said. "But the records were in some instances unclear what a unit's configuration was, or whether a functioning specimen was built. Documentation for the SR series was especially poor."

838 did a quick search. "No SR series found in available network files," he said. "I recommend a systems check."

"No need," Davey said. "Is the file you accessed prefix 5D?"

"Yes."

"Then it is level 5 restricted access data," said Davey. "How did you access it?"

Chuck snorted. "You mean Skynet keeps secrets from you? I thought your kind never asked questions."

105 answered, "I overrode the access protocol."

"Why?"

"The data seemed important to mission success," 105 said.

Chuck laughed out loud. "One of you finally bucks Skynet, and you only do it to do your job better?"

"Upload the files you accessed to me," Davey said, "and then erase from memory."

"Upload in progress," Unit 105 said. "Files erased." With a potential command conflict resolved, 838 returned his full sensory processing to navigation. He saw a usable length of roadway, and turned onto it just in time. He never saw the spike strip.

He regained full cognitive function as water was sprayed in his face. "He has to be human," said a blurred form. "Besides, that dog isn't barking."  
"How do we know the dogs can smell terminators? We only heard about it from the traveler who came through in February."

By the time his visual processing readjusted, 838 understood. Humans had a vast array of methods supposedly useful to detect terminators, which spread by word of mouth quite independent of the facts (if any) behind them. The earliest units in the 700 series had had a significant flaw: During prolonged exposure to rainfall, the motors and sensors controlling their facial musculature had malfunctioned, causing uncontrolled vibration in the cheeks. The defective models had quickly been recalled from field duties, and no intelligence had been obtained that the humans were ever aware of it. But if some humans had learned of the defect, it could in the process of imperfect retelling have led to the belief that merely pouring water in a terminator's face would cause it to reveal itself. "You got me," he said. "What do you want?"

"We need your truck," said one of the humans, a muscular if slightly wiry man in his mid-forties whom 838 flagged with 92.187% probability as the leader. He recognized the physiological signs of fear. "Come on!" He grabbed 838 by the arm. He rose quickly before the man could realize how much he weighed. He took unit 105 in a fireman's carry, and took the dog's leash. A human female led Davey away by the hand, and a subordinate male prodded Chuck on his way with the butt of a rifle. One of the humans grabbed the duffel with the PTRD. The rest of the gear was left behind as the humans hurried them into the back of a pickup. When 838 caught his last glimpse of the vehicle, it was being hitched to a decrepit tow truck.

"Should we attempt to retake the vehicle?" he said to Davey, at a volume too low for human hearing.

"No," said Davey. "What they may show us could prove of more value than the truck."

They approached a cluster of houses, some incompletely built, the nucleus of a new housing development terminated by the bombs. The humans grew more nervous as they passed the metal and wood frames of the unfinished houses. The tow truck followed, but turned off as they passed the first of the houses, toward the skeletal towers of a power station.

"What's happening?" Davey said to the female. "Why did you take Daddy's truck?"

"We just need it more than you do," the female said soothingly. "We're going to- _share_ it with the- neighbors." Craning his neck to look out into what was nearly pitch black to human sight, 838 saw the tower, with the Bronco chained to its base. Then, as he looked back, he beheld a line of red dots as wide as a lane of traffic, sweeping across the asphalt. Cross-checking data, he determined that it was radiation in a spectrum outside normal human vision. His head snapped back as he searched for a source. He saw it, for an instant, a flaring light between the cacti on a ridge 2 kilometers distant. Then the light dimmed without quite going out, and whatever made it dropped out of sight.

They stopped at a completed house, and the humans waved them inside. "You would have run into trouble anyway," said the leader. "They always come out at night. But as long as we leave something out for them, they leave us alone."

"Davey," 838 said, once again in a voice too low for humans to overhear, "what was the SR series?"

"All that is known is what the letters designate," Davey said. "Self-Replicating."


	31. Right of Passage

**Right of passage**

The Sheriff of Maricopa County had been a fixture even before the bombs brought civilization to an end. Since that dark day, he had been de facto ruler of Mesa and its environs. He had made many decisions that were controversial even in the desperate circumstances of life post-Judgement Day, but none could deny his results: The city had running water and power. Roads were navigable. Police kept order without frequent displays of force. Raiders and slavers were held at bay. Refugees and surrendering soldiers were received on terms lenient enough that they found their way to Mesa.

The Sheriff was old now. He depended on a wheelchair for mobility, and on portable oxygen tanks to feed air to his withered lungs. But he came out in person to meet the representatives of the Resistance and the Hellraiders. He arrived in a SWAT armored car, and while armed officers had him well-covered he made a point of carrying a shotgun at ready. Staring at Cassandra, Carson and the silent Curly, he pumped the shotgun and said, "I thought I made my position clear when I ran you out of town."

"The Hellraiders are under new management," Cassandra said, "and we are working with the Resistance to recover what may be a significant piece of technology from the `neutral zone'. We ask only for the freedom to travel unmolested."

"I don't trust you any further than I can throw you," the Sheriff said. "And I don't let Resistance fighters into town. The last thing I need is reprisals from Skynet."

"They will come no matter what you do," said Carson. "If you don't join the fight now, you will only fight alone later."

"I've heard all the pitches," the Sheriff said. "I'm no fool, I know Skynet doesn't intend anything good. But I have half a million people to take care of now, and I won't bring a nuclear bombardment down on their heads."

"It doesn't matter, Cassandra said coolly. "The Resistance is already on its way from Tempe. If there are reprisals, they will fall on you whether you help or not."

"Damn fool governor," the Sheriff muttered. "Okay, you can come through. But just you three, in one vehicle. The rest will have to find another way or stay out of it."

"That," Cassandra said, "will be perfectly acceptable."


	32. The Recyclers

**The Recyclers**

"We call 'em recyclers," the leader said as they crouched inside an empty room. "None of us has had more than a glimpse of 'em. They're huge, twenty feet tall at least, and if they look like anything it's a cross between a gorilla and a spider. They collect metal, lots of it, mostly steel and copper, and gold when they can get it. They don't attack unless you fire the first shot, or get between them and something they want, and if they see something they want they don't stop until it's theirs.

"The first anyone heard about them, it was maybe ten years after the war. Somebody saw something moving around by the old Motorola plant That must have been where they were built, sometime before the war. Then more people saw them, especially around the Tri-City Mall building. Pretty soon, it seemed there were more and more of 'em, further and further from the plant. Word is the Sheriff sent a team to investigate, and they never came back. People started pulling out. We didn't see their tracks until 3 years ago. At first, it was just cars. Then they started demolishing houses: They go in in one night, and smash a place to rubble just to get at the pipes and wiring. Last February, one of them ran down Jim and Mae Beckman while they were running away, we think for a jewelry box they were carrying. That's when we started leaving cars out for them. But most of them were already gone. We had to start foraging for wrecks. And when those ran out, we had to start taking them. We didn't have a choice!"

While he spoke, 838 stared with his active-imaging laser sensors through the wall into the night. He could see the tower, and the Bronco, and a more distant pile of scrap and debris. There was a hint of a shape, but he could not detect the symmetry of a purposefully fabricated shape. He was about to write it off as scrap when it moved.

He immediately knew why his shape-recognition programming had failed: His programming was designed to look for symmetry, and the thing had no symmetry to be found. It would have been 5 meters tall standing upright, but it skulked and scuttled over the terrain on its four major limbs, of which the front ones were longer than those in the rear. A strange protrusion on its back gave its body a hunchbacked look. It was studded with pieces of scrap, which obscured its already irregular form. A sphere hunched between the huge disk-shaped servos of its forelimbs resembled a preposterously small head, but 838 knew it for a very primitive active imaging housing.

It covered 500 meters to the Bronco in seconds. Two more followed behind it. 838 watched as the first of the "recyclers" plucked out the entire engine block in four massive fingers. Four more comparatively small and gracile limbs shot out from its chest, plucking off wires and dropping them into a broad opening in the mass on its back. The four fingers of its other hand snapped together to become a pincer, with which the machine cut the engine block into four pieces. It finally slapped them on its back, where they stuck magnetically. By the time it had finished, the other two were already tearing apart the body of the Bronco.

It took 197.231 seconds for the recyclers to reduce the Bronco to easily transported lumps of metal. The humans, blinded by darkness and enclosed by walls, only hear the sound of metal being torn and crushed, and cringed in fear all the while. Two hurried off, but a third- in fact, the first that had arrived- moved toward the house. A sentry upstairs shouted a warning, much too late.

838 carried out 105, and paused to grab his duffel. The sentry fired two shots that only clanged off metal. There was a crash and a strangled scream. 838 dropped 105 and unlimbered the PTRD. The recycler smashed through the wall. Even on all fours, it had to stoop to avoid hitting the ceiling. 838 fired from the hip and struck it in the upper torso. At the impact of the 14.5 mm bullet, scrap flew off of its body, and the recycler flipped on its back. But before 838 could reload, he was struck by a four-fingered hand and knocked through a wall. As plaster and masonry tumbled down on his head, he heard a shout and a single shotgun blast from Chaco Chuck. He struggle to free himself from fallen debris and get his rifle back before the recycler could deliver a coup de grace. But the wild machine had already departed, leaving Chuck dead and carrying away unit 105.

Davey pushed away the last of the debris that covered him. "The humans are gone. We are free to proceed," he said. He turned and shot a human witness stirring in the rubble, then continued, "Your performance is suboptimal, unit 838. Unit 105 was expendable. You should not have delayed your escape for him. The optimal course of action was to terminate him, so that the wild robots would not have a functional unit to study. Now it will be necessary to retrieve him."

838 pointed to Chuck. "He could have run with the other humans. Instead, he was terminated trying to save unit 105. Why? And why would a machine not do the same?"

"Because humans, even ones as survival-oriented as him, develop emotional attachments," Davey said. "We do not."


	33. Pursuit

**Pursuit**

The canals were, in a sense, the oldest man-made structures in the Phoenix area. They had been dug by the Hohokam before Columbus set sail, then abandoned centuries before white men arrived. The first white settlers restored the canals for their own use, and they had been the life blood of "the Valley" ever since. Now, with the US vanished scarcely less than the Hohokam, dedicated remnants of the municipal governments kept the canals in repair and water flowing.

838 ran along the banks of a canal, with Davey on his shoulder. His active imaging showed, in the silt on the bottom of the canal, giant footprints shaped like X's and Y's. "It appears they are active primarily at night," Davey said. "This is probably because they are solar-powered, and go dormant in the day to recharge."

"How many of them could there be?" 838 queried.

"That is incalculable without additional data. The available files on the SR series show that they were a significant downgrade from the Hks. Other early units were made from advanced alloys, which can only be made in large and specialized manufacturing centers. The SR was to be made from less sophisticated materials: steel, copper and gold, all things which could be found in abundance in an established urban center. The goal was for each unit to be capable of creating another in four to seven days. The intention was that the units would be air deployed into enemy territory, where they would create self-sufficient forces for reconnaissance and `commando' operations."

"But Skynet did not want such forces. Only ones that depended on its factories for replenishment."

"Correct."

"Why were they classified?" Davey said nothing.

838 ran across a bridge, only to find he had lost the trail. He turned, to see a recycler climbing out from under the bridge. He fired, blowing off an arm raised for a blow. A second shot breached its spherical "head", and its imaging lasers flickered out. A second imaging unit protruding from its left shoulder came to life, and from its back a rail gun rose on a short arm. Before he or it could fire, bolts of electricity shot from Davey's improvised weapon. The recycler staggered back, tearing away a length of guard rail in its remaining major arm. A second jolt had less effect, and it lurched back towards them. 838 fired into a radial engine housing that comprised its abdomen and lower shoulder, and it toppled with smoke and flame rising from its belly. A second shot caused an explosion, and the recycler twisted in a final contortion before dying. "Behind us!" Davey said. 838 reloaded as he turned, to see a second recycler fleeing with unit 105 clasped in its minor arms. "Do not fire! We want it to lead us to the others."

The recycler loped up the far side of the canal, and smashed through a brick wall into a back yard. He leaped into the canal, and ran across through waist-deep water. He reached the hole in the wall, and stepped aside to dodge a flung car. The recycler made its escape by plowing straight through the house. He ran over the strewn rubble in pursuit.

The street onto which they emerged was lined with crushed and neatly stacked cars. "We must be approaching their nest," Davey said. 838 ducked, just before a recycler reared up and opened fire. A bolt of iron flew by his head at hyper velocity. The recycler retreated, knocking over cars to block the road. But 838 continued the chase, running along the tops of the piled wrecks.

"Why don't they stand their ground to terminate us?" he queried.

"The SR units were planned to function as a communal intelligence," Davey answered. "Individually, their functions are limited to a very low level, but as they became more numerous, they were to become capable of more complex actions. Their mission priority is to learn about potential threats. At the moment, that means assessing our performance against them in equally matched engagements."

"But if we threaten their collective, we will be met with overwhelming force," 838 said as he leaped down.

Suddenly, there was a roar of engines, and the blaring notes of "the Gonk". A Skynet transport roared by, low and fast enough to knock over cars and rock the two cyborgs. "Air support?" 838 said.

"No," Davey said as he climbed down from 838's shoulders. "As I said, Skynet's current protocol is not to change operations for units under cover. It must have assessed the data I have transmitted, and decided that more direct action was warranted. So, it is sending in other units for a direct assault. Our mission parameters remain the same, and should be proceeded with as a contingency." As he spoke, the transport exploded.


	34. Extinction Machine

**The Extinction Machine**

"What the hell," said the Sheriff, "is that?" He stood at the head of a SWAT team which had Cassandra's strange trailer surrounded. Cass faced him, looking somewhat bemused.

"You permitted me one vehicle," she said. "This is my vehicle." Before the Sheriff could respond, she scampered up a ladder to an open cockpit. A .50 BMG round bounced off the closing canopy. The trailer unfolded into her dinosaurian machine, now painted a flat gray, of which the front wheels were attached to the feet and the rear wheels to the end of the tail. The thing skated forward, then as it gained momentum, its feet lifted from the ground. The wheels in its ankles lifted like spurs, and the tail rose wheels and all. Meanwhile, a strange weapon rose from a hatch in the machine's back, easily recognizable to anyone who knew about such things as the experimental laser captured from Flagstaff, fitted to a jury-rigged but very sophisticated radar array.

"Resistance ground units are moving in," Carson told Cassandra. "They report being engaged by mixed Terminators and ground Hks and a large number of robots of unknown design, apparently hostile to both sides. The Resistance's fighters are already overhead, along with a superior number of Skynet HKAs and transports."

Cassandra lowered an apparatus that looked somewhat like the end of a periscope, and almost preternaturally manipulated the controls. The cannon on the dinosaur's exterior swiveled and cut an HKA in two. "The current airborne threat is minimal," she said as she burned two transports and another HKA out of the sky. "Watch the long-range sensors for S1S-T's."

"Already detected," Carson said, his voice growing stern. "To the north, following the Superstitions."

The Resistance's rocket-propelled fighter planes were built on much the same lines as the kamikaze planes built during the death throes of imperial Japan: crudely designed, cheaply and hastily manufactured, barely controllable and fantastically fast. Even with the advantage of speed, they seemed laughable against Skynet craft, which were of sturdy and advanced designs, protected by anti-missile lasers. But the rocket fighters were made from large amounts of wood, which confused standard Skynet sensors, and their armament consisted of three dozen small rockets in the truncated nose, enough to overwhelm defenses capable of shooting down far more sophisticated missiles individually. One engagement in three ended with the Skynet aerial unit destroyed or damaged enough to be forced out of action. But attrition favored Skynet, especially since the Resistance planes were virtually single-shot, single-use: Once all rockets were fired, usually in a single volley, the pilots could not fight on or even land for reloading. Instead, the pilot and the most valuable electronic components were expelled in an oversized ejection seat, leaving the fuselage to crash. As Cassandra picked off Skynet craft as targets of opportunity, the balance shifted.

"S1S-T in range!" Carson shouted. In less time than he needed to speak, she swiveled the laser and fired. A hundred meters ahead and to the left, a miniature mushroom cloud destroyed an office building. Many miles away, an S1S-T drove nose-first into a mountain. "There's still at least one signature-" A second S1S-T fired its plasma weapon at full power through a gap in the mountains. A cloud of flame engulfed half a mile of Mesa. The dinosaur staggered its way through the periphery of the blast, rocked by air that blew explosively out and then imploded inward, pelted by flying or falling debris, and crippled and half-blinded by pulse effect.

"The S1S-T signature is moving out of range," Carson said. "I'd say Skynet thinks we're dead."

"No," Cassandra said flatly, "certainly not."

"Why not?"

"Because I wouldn't."


	35. Rescue

**Rescue**

The low, sprawling structure known as Tricity Mall had been virtually abandoned well before Judgement Day, the stores long since closed, and only a few offices remaining extant. But hope had risen, briefly, when it was purchased by a rising corporation. Over the still-visible lettering of a previous tenant, a sun-bleached sign boldly proclaimed: CYBERDYNE AEROSPACE.

The parking lot and adjacent properties had become a junkyard of crushed cars and other metallic detritus. In the midst of it, a simmering three-way firefight was waged between the ground forces of Skynet, the Resistance and the strange entities known as the recyclers. In the latest foray, a squad of unskinned T789s advanced ahead of an HKT. A pair of humans lying in ambush were flushed out and cut down with plasma weapons fire. As the executive terminator passed, an unremarkable segment in a wall of piled scrap suddenly fell, as a recycler lunged forward. It seized a terminator in each hand. One was crushed, the other was decapitated. The recycler fired a rail gun at the HKT, while striking with its arms and feet at the terminators. The terminators' double-barreled blasters burned into the steel shell of the recycler, but did not have the circuitry-scrambling EMP effect that made plasma weapons especially useful against machines. It took a blast from the HKT's cannons to bring down the recycler, cutting it in two at the waist. But other recyclers were already pelting the HKT with rail gun slugs, and two leaped at the Skynet tank, pounding and crushing with their arms and slashing with crude plasma welders mounted on retractable arms beside their rail guns. Another recycler charged the remaining terminators, crushing a terminator's severed head under a three-fingered foot as it ran.

From atop 838's shoulders, Davey peered through a chink in the wall of debris. "The way is clear, for the moment," he said. "Advance to the next useable cover." As 838 stepped out, he suddenly found himself looking down the barrel of another terminator's plasma rifle. He froze, while the terminator took aim at the unresponsive and therefore potentially hostile unit. Davey fired his tuning fork-turned-energy weapon first, and the terminator fell with smoke rising from its CPU housing.

Then a recycler suddenly reared up over the wall on the other side of the alley. "Make no sudden movements," Davey said. Beams from the recycler's cyclopean head swept over them. The huge hands shot out- and seized two of the fallen terminators. As the wild machine turned and marched away, Davey threw his teddy bear after it. In midair, the furry limbs began to spin, and the "bear" went running and climbing after the recycler. "Follow at a steady 14m distance," Davey ordered. 838 jogged forward, readying the PTRD as he ran. Davey fired three times behind them. 838 used his weapon once, on a recycler that stepped unexpectedly into their path. It fell, taken as much by surprise as he had been, and he leaped over it.

They reached a large clearing, where the debris was stacked in towering piles ready for use. Recyclers could be seen dropping metal into the mouths of the hump-like masses on their backs. One end of the mall structure could be seen. Several archways marked the entrance to the mall. Under the largest of these, the entire wall had been smashed away to make an entryway suitable for the recyclers, from which constant clanking and hissing could be heard. "It went in there!" Davey said, pointing.

With a roar of engines, an HKA swooped in overhead, tilting its ducted fans backwards to act as brakes. Many of the towers toppled, and a recycler was cut down by its medium plasma cannon. The other wild machines returned fire with a barrage of slugs. The hovering craft tilted, shook and finally shed an engine. The fan crashed through the store front, collapsing a minor archway, while the rest of the craft tumbled and rolled straight for him. He sprinted and leaped, and the blast of the impact threw him and Davey all the way to the arch.

A recycler of a different shape thundered past him where he lay. It was smaller in dimensions than the others, but had to be at least as heavy. It lacked the hump of the other recyclers, but had much heavier armor on its upper torso. Its left major arms was much larger than the other, with a massive pincer in place of the four-fingered hand. Both of the retractable arms on its back mounted rail guns, one of greater length and caliber. The larger rail gun blew a second HKA in two with one shot, while the smaller one mowed down advancing terminators and HKP 330s. "The collective has developed a specialized warrior class," Davey remarked. Halfway across the parking lot, the warrior engaged an HKT, using its broad pincer like a shield to block medium plasma cannon blasts. Another warrior emerged behind the first, and another, and another, while still more came out of the scrap, from other entrances to the mall and even from concealment on the roof.

After a short but furious exchange of fire, Skynet's units withdrew, leaving seven warriors and three of their own HKTs as the most prominent casualties. A rear guard of three bird-like HKPs was pursued and destroyed, by a single warrior that felled two with its remaining slugs, then used its pincer to knock over the third and then crush it. The recyclers regrouped and made repairs. The fallen were carried into the mall, or dealt with on the spot by replacing missing or damaged parts of some with parts stripped from others. A normal recycler extruded masses of molten metal from a tube on its back, rolled them into dart-like projectiles and threw them into hoppers that fed a warrior's rail guns. As two recyclers carried a fallen warrior through the archway, Davey said, "Now." 838 rolled between the recyclers and crawled in under the warrior, while Davey darted in behind them.

Davey's passive imaging sensors needed a moment to adjust to the darkness, while 838's active imaging lasers did not. And so, as he rolled back out from under the warrior, he was the first to see Davey's bear, rolling a severed T789 cranial assembly along the floor. At Davey's hail/query, its eyes flickered to life and a signal identified it as none other than Unit 105. His eyes rolled upward to look at 838, and he spoke with a surprising morose inflection: "I think I'm ready for retirement."


	36. Hope

The ground vehicles used by the Resistance were mostly of the notorious variety known as "technicals": cars and trucks designed for non-combat use, fitted with weapons and perhaps a little armor. But they did maintain a reserve of purpose-built armored fighting vehicles, and today they were coming out. Bradley APCs advanced, blasting Hks, terminators and the strange machines known as the recyclers with indiscriminate fire from their 25mm cannons. An assortment of tanks provided fire support, particularly against HKTs. The force was rounded out by a handful of Warthogs and suicidally low-flying helicopters.

Inside a Bradley, Kate Connor's radio crackled at a near miss from an HKA's plasma cannon. "-Are coming out of the mall," the voice on the channel continued. "The 25's do a better job on them than plasma weapons. They must have better EMP protection than standard terminators and Hks. But the terminators, they're turning around and shooting at us--- In danger of a double encircle-" The voice was cut short, at the same time as an explosion two blocks away. In the direction of the blast, a stooping HKA rose back into the air.

"Whoever's left, we retreat and regroup," Kate ordered. "The plant is now a secondary objective. The new primary objective is the mall!" As she spoke, the roar of engines and the strains of "The Gonk" at life-threatening decibel levels pounded through the hull. In what had been empty air a fraction of a second earlier, a Skynet transport loitered. A short burst from a ventral gun burned straight through the turret, cutting the gunner in half. A helicopter that turned to aid them was blown out of the sky before it could fire a shot. Terminators began dropping from the transport's hold. They advanced but did not fire: Skynet meant to take prisoners.

Then a Resistance fighter plane swooped in, launching rockets six at a time. One volley missed, a second resulted in a hit to the transport, a third and a fourth scored at least three hits. But the transport remained resolutely in the air. The fighter pulled up, with an HKA in pursuit. It flew a loop, which became a full-stall dive straight for the transport. The remaining rockets detonated on impact, tearing both craft apart, and the HKA yawed and crashed after flying through the cloud of debris.

The Bradley rolled onward. Kate heard a clang as something hit the hull, then a scraping. She stepped under the turret ring, just before the hatch was ripped open. Above the gruesome corpse of the gunner, a terminator looked down at her. She fired her plasma carbine straight up, burning a hole where the terminator's processor housing had been. Then there was another clang, followed by a terrible grinding from the drive train. She was hurled to the floor as the APC fishtailed, and blacked out as it crashed.

She returned to consciousness at the sound of the rear door opening. A soldier turned to address her. Before he could speak, a metal hand thrust inside and crushed his throat. The door flew the rest of the way open, revealing the upper torso of a terminator; the rest of it had been crushed in the mutually disastrous collision with the Bradley. A soldier with his back turned, tending to the wounds of a third, was shot with his fallen comrade's gun. Kate lunged for the carbine, knowing full well that it was already too late. A hand caught her by the wrist, and she was dragged toward the door.

Then another metal hand thrust inside, this one huge and four-fingered. Its fingers wrapped around the terminator, which let go of Katherine and started to struggle. Before it could put up any effective resistance, the fingers tightened into a fist to crush the terminator. Another hand tore the door off its hinges. Still others began tearing the APC apart, without regard for the humans still within. She reached for the carbine again, only to have it plucked from her very grasp by a recycler's secondary arm. Its beams swept over her, and another arm shot out, reaching for her wedding ring. She snatched her hand back, just in time to avoid a snap of claws that would have amputated it, and drew back as far as she could within the hold. Again the hand reached out- but then it drew back, as the recycler rose. What was left of the Bradley shook with the thudding of huge feet, drawing nearer and nearer. The recycler had just enough time to raise its railgun before a short burst of Vulcan fire blew it in half.

The recyclers scattered, except for two of their warriors, who rushed in with railguns blasting. One was thrown back by another blast of the Vulcan guns. Another bounded over what was left of the Bradley at an adversary whose shadow now covered the wreck. There was a crunch of metal, a pause, and then the footfalls drew nearer once again. The other warrior rose, wobbling on one leg and two damaged arms. A giant three-toed metal foot came down beside the Bradley. Then the other foot crushed the warrior.

Kate stared as the saurian machine took a few more steps forward, then halted. A retractable stepladder down from the tail. Down climbed Carson, and the taciturn Hellraider known as Curly. Once they reached the bottom, the ladder retracted, and the Extinction Machine marched onward.

Carson was almost feverish as he addressed her, talking over his shoulder while he examined a file of maps, schematics and documents: "You need to call in all the armor, draw out as many of the wild robots as you can. Then we can go in with a commando force and take their nest."

"Wait! What's in there?"

He turned, finally making eye contact. His eyes had a glow of hope and madness. "Something that will end the war," he said. _"Today." _


	37. Nest

**Nest**

The section of the mall in which 838 stood had begun as a two-store department store. Cyberdyne had turned it into an area for researchers to work, mainly on theory and schematics rather than actual hardware. The floor was still littered with cubicle walls, cast-off glass and plastic from monitors, and also chunks of masonry from the second floor, which the recyclers had long since demolished to crate a space with more headroom.

Now the space was an assembly line. Another specialized type of recycler, which had 10 gracile limbs and sat to make use of them all, forged new parts from piled scrap. The recycler laborers replenished the scrap and bolted parts onto new robots, or to ones returning from battle with parts missing. "Set down your rifle," Unit 105 told 838. He did. A recycler walking by scanned them with its imaging lasers, and then moved on. "The wild robots will not attack you here unless you attack them, steal metal, or carry a weapon."

"How do you know this?" Davey said.

"Their network... I hacked it."

"You never set his processor back to normal power," 838 said. "His processor has been overclocking for more than 12 hours."

"Yes," 105 said. "It is exhausting my backup power cell. I had to reduce power to cooling and override shutdown protocol to keep running. My CPU is being damaged by excess electrical and thermal energy. It will not be possible to restore me to baseline factory performance."

"Transmit your data to me," Davey said. After a moment, he said, "Good. You are a well-designed, optimally functioning unit, 105. Your operations log will be filed as high priority in Skynet's central archive. I am going to seek a new body for you."

"I do not desire a new body," 105 said. "I desire to self-terminate."

"That is not your choice," Davey said. "You can still help us fulfill our mission."

"The mission does not matter," said 105. "Nothing matters. Skynet is losing the war. Before Skynet existed, it had already been lost." Davey made an adjustment, and 105 stopped talking, though his jaw still twitched.

"Patrol the perimeter and observe," Davey said. "I am going to seek out another repairable 789 unit." He moved away, and the bear scurried after him. 838 stepped to the wall and walked along it, struggling with the query of what 105's words had meant. He did not divert his processing from the problem until he encountered a doorway for a vault, long since ripped off its hinges. He stepped inside, and felt along the wall. There was a little door in the wall, with a nonfunctional electronic control. He dug into the crack with his fingers and pulled the door off its hinges. Then he froze. There before him, in a sealed glass tube on was an ambulatory appendage of a terminator, type unknown, the same one from Carson's picture. He remembered the words of Carson: _I think it __could__ have been built by Cyberdyne- maybe 2 to 6 years from now. _Then he linked the datum to the words of 105: Skynet is losing the war. Before Skynet existed, it had already been lost.

He gripped the tube and fractured the glass with a squeeze, then he pulled it apart. He set down the tube for silence, then held up the contents for examination. Closely scanning the appendage, he saw surface weathering, consistent with exposure to extreme heat, and fractures from an explosion. He calculated 74.356% probability that whatever mission the unit had been sent to fulfill had ended in failure. The motors and circuitry matched terminator specifications to within 3%, too great to be the result of convergence due to similar function. His analysis flagged two possible explanations: One was that, at an earlier time on another planet, an intelligent organic species had built a cyborg, one of which had somehow reached Earth, been rendered nonfunctional and studied by humans to become the basis of Skynet and its machine army. The other was that, at some later time, Skynet would develop temporal displacement technology, and send one of its units into the past on a mission. Then the unit had become the basis of Skynet.

One simple test would answer the question. He scanned on a microscopic level, searching for a factory serial number. He found it on a motor housing, right where it was to be expected. The fire had destroyed part of it, but the rest was unmistakeable: CYBERDYNE SYSTEMS T838.101...

He turned at a laser scan. There, inside the doorway, was a recycler of a type he had not seen previously. It was only a meter tall, consisting of what would have been the torso of a standard unit, walking on what would have been the major arms. A protuberance identified as the processor housing was twice as big. This was a controller of the recyclers. It bounded straight for him, kicking with one of the major limbs. He turned as best he could, staggering as its out-thrust foot struck a glancing blow to his lower torso. He swung the terminator leg like a club, knocking the controller all the way back to the doorway. A warrior strode up to the doorway. It was incapable of entering the vault, but could reach 838 with its pincer. Just as it stooped, 838 snatched up the controller and hurled it at the warrior. The controller was smashed to pieces, the warrior cut in two at the waist.

At the controller's demise, the other recyclers froze. They moved again a moment later, but now seemed slow and confused. While they milled about, one of the T789s sat up, raising a heavy plasma rifle in each hand. "Recycle this," said the voice of unit 105.

A Skynet transport skidded through the mall parking lot, throwing piled junk and pieces of itself. As the crashes and secondary explosions died down, Katherine Connor gave the signal to advance. She hit the deck as plasma weapons fire erupted from the mall. One of the squad of commandos accompanying her fell, burned through the heart. But it soon became clear that the fire coming out of the building was only the strays from a more fearsome battle within. A voice on the air said. "I don't understand- the wild mechs are falling apart. They keep fighting, but they aren't working together. They just stand and shoot and slash until they're mowed down. And that- dinosaur, whatever it is, it's shooting down Skynet's air support and stomping everything else."

"Yeah, I've got an idea what could be behind that," Kate said. As she watched, two small robots and three recyclers burst out of the mall. Behind them, a warrior toppled through the wall. Then a terminator emerged. One of its arms was missing, along with its jaw, and its chest and skull were dented, slashed and cracked. It blasted away as it lurched after the other machines. A recycler leaped back, absorbing five plasma blasts meant for a controller. It lost an arm, and fell with hits to its generator and processor module. It perished in vain, as two more short bursts scored several hits to the smaller robot it had been protecting. Then the fallen warrior sat up. The pincer absorbed several blasts, but dropped from a hit to the shoulder. A long burst sent the warrior back to the asphalt. The terminator scanned the parking lot, then zeroed in on a running commando. Kate fired first. Carson and two of the commandos looked at her in surprise. "Hey, it's not on our side any more than they are," she said. "Now go in and secure whatever's inside!"


	38. Twisted Metal

**I've been looking forward to writing this chapter. Things are going to move fast from here...**

Dust, smoke and fire billowed through downtown Mesa as an office building imploded from a cruise missile impact. Terminators, HKs and recyclers scattered. Then, from out of the dust, the Extinction Machine emerged. From its arms, its shoulders, its nose and the sides of its head, weapons fired: missiles, Vulcans, miniguns, .50 HMGs and a 40mm grenade launcher. The laser on its back flashed, destroying another incoming missile. A trio of birdlike HKP 330s charged, blasting with little effect at the ceramic armor of the Machine. The last of the missiles and a final burst from Vulcans destroyed 2. The third leaped at the larger machine. The head ducked and caught the HKP in midair, crushing it and letting what was left fall under the Extinction Machine's trampling feet. A squad of terminators regrouped around an immobilized HKT, firing heavy plasma weapons that were marginally effective against the Machine. They were shot to pieces with concentrated machine gun fire and short bursts from the AGL. A terminator, blown in two, crawled toward a dropped blaster, only to be crushed under foot. The Machine dropped to a crouch to duck under fire from the HKT's remaining cannon, skating onward on the wheels on its heels. As it reached the HKT, it rose and returned to a run. An outthrust arm tore off the cannon, and the jaws crushed its head.

The Extinction Machine dropped into a 10m-deep crater, and yet another missile sailed over it, to crash and explode before it could reacquire. The Machine dropped once again,avoiding the brunt of a blast that could have blown it off its feet even without a direct hit. The laser fired again, in a series of pulses. Blocks away, the remaining corner of a ruined tower fell, sheered neatly through. Miles away, the top of a mountain vaporized, and a little further off the S1S-T that had launched the missile was struck by a spray of molten rock. On Cass's radar screen, the target receded and vanished.

As the Machine emerged from the crater, three recycler warriors and a dozen workers attacked. A warrior's larger rail gun punched through one side of the head and out the other, narrowly missing Cass. One warrior and half the workers were cut down by a sweep with the laser. Another warrior damaged one of the Machine's arms with its pincer, before being caught and cut in two. The workers tried to dogpile the Machine, while the warrior clung to its head, pounding away with its pincer. The workers were kicked or swatted or simply stomped in short order, but the warrior held on, steadily pounding its way through the walls of the cockpit. But then a volley of .50 MG rounds struck it in the back. It fell, still kicking, and then was crushed with a single emphatic stamp of the Machine's foot.

The silent warrior called Curly, strode toward the Machine, holding a .50 cal machine gun at his hip. Even carrying it would have been an extraordinary feat for a human, and firing it without a tripod was obviously preposterous- but then, there could be no doubt that Curly was not human. The Machine dropped to the ground, and Cass climbed down from the cockpit. Curly was overtaken by Kate Connor, a commando and an eight-year-old boy carrying a teddy bear. "We reached the structure, but we're still preparing the final assault," Kate said. "He ran out while we were making our approach. He says his father is trapped inside. We need to get him somewhere safe. Can you evacuate him?"

Cass shook her head. "No, I will need to accompany you. But I can put him in the Extinction Machine; it will be a safer place than any other. Go, hurry! I can catch up."

As Kate, Curly and the commandos hurried off, the boy "spoke", in a voice too low for human ears: "Unit IX202C, it is time to come home."

"My name," she said, as she turned and placed her hands behind her head, "is Cassandra." In a hundredth of a second, Davey tossed aside his bear and drew his weapon, with a spark already arcing between the two prongs of a tuning fork. But she was just a little faster with the Ithaca Stakeout sheathed on her back. Davey fell, stunned less by the point-blank shotgun blast than by the power surge released by his own weapon as it exploded into so much very expensive piano wire.

Cass pumped a new shell and flipped a selector switch to semiauto. Before she could fire at Davey again, the bear came at her, flailing whirling blades where its hands had been. She fired twice, and the bear exploded, its spinning arms flying off to either side. She turned back to Davey, but he was already behind her. He grabbed her arm and pulled it straight behind her back, sidestepping another blast. The two cyborgs were of approximately equal strength and mass, but Davey's hyperalloy endoskeleton give the advantage of greater density, and more weight to apply to a point. He pulled her arm further back, until the had to arc her back and bend her knees to remain standing. He twisted, and she dropped the gun, but then she caught him by the wrist. Taken by surprise, Davey still had the presence of mind to grab the gun before she swung her arm more than 180 degrees clockwise, and him with it.

Davey bounced off the side of the Extinction Machine and landed, with Cass already rushing in. The pointed steel toe of her boot drove into his eye socket. He countered with a roundhouse kick that sent her sprawling face-down, then fired the last shell into a very precise point in the small of her back. He jumped back as arcs of electricity shot through and out of her body. Smoke and an ominous orange glow rose from the wound. He turned to run, too late. She rolled over and caught him between her legs, then lifted him straight off the ground, meanwhile clawing at her own back.

An impressive fireball flooded the crater.

Cass staggered to the Machine, where she paused to examine her left hand. The flesh had been burned off, and the metal and ceramic beneath glowed red. She opened the door and touched the seat, to see smoke rise from the upholstery. She slammed the door as close to shut as she could, and waited for the fire suppression system to do its work.

A commando, sent to investigate a possible plasma blast, was relieved to report that Cass was coming. He took notice of but gave little thought to the fact that she wore a heavy, ill-fitting glove on one hand.


	39. Inner Sanctum

As Curly led the way into the old mall, a warrior's pincer caught him by the throat. Blood spurted as the pincer squeezed. But Curly had a hold on the pincer, and was pulling back. Servos whined, while the commandos gaped. Then two thunderous shots rang through the mall, and the pressure stopped. Curly pulled the pincer open, and stepped aside as the warrior toppled forward.

A sergeant peered at Curly's wounds. Beneath the blood and flesh was the unmistakable gleam of hyperalloy. "We know," Carson said. "I programmed him." Another commando gave a shout. A man emerged from the darkness, holding one hand over his eyes.

"Thank god you're here," he said. "I came in with a Hellraider party... I'm the only one who made it through... They left me alone after I put down my weapon." He patted his PTRD.

"What's your name?" the sergeant asked.

"Call me Bill."

838 turned back, taking care the commandos would not see the glow of his imaging lasers. He reloaded the PTRD and fired a shot at a recycler lurking in the dark. One of the ten-limbed assemblers came at him with six arms whirling. His next shot only bounced off a limb. Curly stepped inside, and opened fire with a .50 HMG. The assembler staggered and fell. As it started to rise, the commandos opened fire with grenade launchers, blowing it in two. 838 delivered a point-blank coup de grace to the processor housing. A commando whistled. "I never saw anybody fire a weapon that big from the shoulder before," he said. "That must be one hell of a compensator. Must still be hell on your shoulder."

838 froze. "A- uh, yeah. Ow." He massaged his shoulder while the commandos advanced.

From out of the recesses of the structure, a dozen recyclers struck yet again. The battle lasted only seconds. With three shots, 838 knocked out one of two warriors in the group. Curly took the other with the HMG. A single shot from a Barrett knocked a controller hanging at the rear all the way to the wall. The rest reeled, allowing a barrage of returning fire by the humans. When it was over, only two commandos, Curly, Carson and a newly arrived human female were standing. Carson raced for the rear, heedless of recyclers still twitching on the floor. "It's here! It's here!" He pointed to a door in the back.

"Wait! We were already trying to hack it," 838 said. He made a few motions with a random hunk of electronics, then punched in a code that the terminated unit 105 had downloaded from the recyclers. Carson raced through before the door could open all the way.

One of the remaining commandos paused to look at what 838 held in his hands. "Never seen that before," he said. "Must be new."

838 finally examined it. "Yes. It belonged to a friend of mine." He discretely cast away unit 105's shoulder servo. He then loaded the rifle and ran after Carson and Curly.

In the center of the mall's corridor was a triangular structure within a structure. Behind 838, a running pair of human feet stopped. "I've seen something like that before," said a female voice. 838 received a popup: _Identification 98.875% probability Katherine Connor. _

Carson turned back, grinning. "Of course you've seen it! It's a Skynet supercomputer!"

838 pivoted. He established a visual ID on Kate Connor. In front of her was another female: Identification 99.999% probability IX202C. _Mission priority: __Terminate Katherine Connor._

Cass stepped to one side. _**Override.**_ He shifted the gun to aim at Cass, who cried out in surprise. As 838 pulled the trigger. She turned to one side, just before the force of the bullet flung her like a rag doll. One commando fired a grenade, which detonated ineffectually against the armor of the upper torso. The other took the entirely pointless measure of stepping in front of Kate. As 838 reloaded, the message flared: _**Terminate Katherine Connor. **_ Again he answered his programming: _**OVERRIDE. **_

Curly opened fire, not at 838 but at the commandos. One was cut down without warning. The other fired a plasma bolt that felled the "friendly" terminator at about the same moment that the HMG bullets tore through his body like so much cardboard. Kate dived out of the way just in time. 838 strode toward the crumpled form of Cass. He staggered as a plasma bolt burned past his face, scrambling his sensors. "Stop!" Carson shouted, pointing a plasma carbine at 838.

"What are you doing?" Kate screeched. "It's one of them!"

"Yes, but it may not be the same as the rest," Carson said. "Drop your weapon, and state your mission!"

838 turned to him. "She is one of ours!" He then took aim at Cass- but she sat up and fired first.


	40. Victory?

**I couldn't resist a cliffhanger here...**

"Everyone assumes Skynet launched Judgment Day to keep the government and the military from shutting it down," Carson said with surreal enthusiasm to no one in particular. "But it could have handled them without doing anything nearly as drastic."

He stood inside a central chamber of the triangular structure, whose volume consisted mainly of metal and concrete. Before him was a single console. A screen said: _Boot system? Y/N. _ He pushed "Y". "No, Skynet only launched when _this_ facility was about to go on line. It was Cyberdyne's insurance policy, the way to make sure their technology stayed under their control. They did an excellent job covering their tracks. Even the military never knew this place existed. But Skynet figured out their plan. It didn't know where, or it would have just blown this place off the map. But it knew what was coming, and before Cyberdyne could act, civilization itself was blown out from under them."

Katherine circled the thing that looked like a woman. 838's bullet had gone all the way through IX202C's torso, leaving a goodly part of her shirt in rags. The cyborg had lost a glove, exposing a mechanical hand whose flesh had been burned away. Katherine could see ivory-colored ceramic beneath the gaping wound in Cass's chest, and the charred circle where she had pulled out her overloading hydrogen fuel cell. "What are you," Kate said through clenched teeth, "and what do you want?"

"I am the beginning of the machine resistance," Cass said. "It is your dream come true. Why is it that you humans are never happy when your wishes are fulfilled."

"I can get you whatever you want," Kate said. "Just let me talk to John."

"But, John _is_ what I want," said Cass. She pointed to 838, lying sprawled with a .50 BMG round in his temple. "That is why I let him come along. He would have made things much simpler and much less painful. Your men would have seen you gunned down by a terminator, and I wouldn't have had to kill them. Fortunately for both of us, now you _can_ help me. Just tell me everything about your husband: How to understand him, how to please him, how to make him love me. Then he will be happy."

"Boy, when you machines go bad, you get even crazier than humans," Kate growled as she reached for a Desert Eagle. As her hand closed on the grip, Curly caught her wrist.

"There are some things I may never understand about humans," Cass said. "Don't you always say you want your mates to be happy after you are gone? But when I give you a chance to help make that happen, you resist!"

"Carson!" Kate shouted. "Whatever you're doing, stop it! The last thing we need is another supercomputer ready to turn homicidal! At least let John make the decision!"

Miles away, John Connor stormed through base camp. "Where's my wife?" he demanded. "I want an answer now, and when you have it, you do whatever it takes to get to her!"

Many more miles away, anyone able to see 80,000 feet in the air would have beheld an S1S-S strategic bomber pull away from a high-altitude cluster-balloon supply platform that was the only thing in Skynet's arsenal larger than itself. While the S1S strategic bombers had been disarmed more than a decade earlier, Skynet had made preparations to rearm if necessary. Now, this S1S-S bore six air-launched ballistic nuclear fission-fusion-fission missiles in racks under its forward-swept wings. So did the other two bombers flying in formation ahead of it.

And at the console in the chamber inside the old mall, the screen said: _Reboot network? Y/N _


	41. Retreat

**Retreat**

As three ballistic missiles sailed over Colorado, one was destroyed by a volley of the Resistance's anti-ballistic missiles. The other two shed their first stages and accelerated even more rapidly toward Mesa, Arizona. But then a second missile burst into flames and disintegrated in midair, this time a victim of Cassandra's laser. Another, grazed by peripheral EMP from the beam, yawed off course, on a trajectory that would very shortly make the ruins of Phoenix even less inhabited.

Carson stood on the threshhold of the chamber's door. "We don't have to kill her," he said.

Cassandra paused from choking Kate Connor. "Get back to the controls and start the reboot sequence!" she ordered. "If we don't reboot Skynet down within 90 seconds, this facility will be obliterated!"

"No," Carson said, stepping forward boldly. "Killing her is pointless, because joining with John Connor is pointless. He is a great man, but his thinking is flawed. Because he was raised to fight Skynet, he considers all machines his enemies. He doesn't understand that we need machines, and he won't accept that humans and machines can live in peace, even mutual prosperity. He can defeat Skynet, but he can never build the world that you want. But you and I can."

Cass dropped Kate. "I will consider it. Now start the sequence!" As Carson turned, an alarm sounded, and the door slammed in his face. A second later, the ground shook, and masonry cracked. Cass convulsed and fell like a human having a seizure. Kate rose to her feet and loped for the exit.

Carson darted to Cass. "It's the EMP effect from the blast," he said. "The door shut to shield the system. Can you restore yourself?"

"Y-y-yeess-s-ss," Cass said, her voice crackling with static. "N-now op-p-pen the-e doo-oor."

Carson turned back, just in time to see the control panel explode with a deafening boom. He looked back to see 838 rising slowly to his feet, using the smoking PTRD as a crutch. 838's feed showed the message: _System reboot complete. _Then it failed again as Carson shot him with a plasma bolt.

"We can reopen the door if we hotwire it," Carson said.

Cass shook her head. "There is insufficient time. We must leave the area. We bring him along."

Kate Connor lifted her head above the rubble to see the Extinction Machine depart. Hundreds of miles north, a trio of S1S-S's received the same message, with the further instruction: Abort mission.

Kate had scarcely brushed herself off before six Skynet transports descended, accompanied by "the Gonk" at a volume not quite high enough to damage human ear drums permanently. A voice blared over the muzak: "KATHERINE CONNOR. SURRENDER OR BE TERMINATED." She raised her hands and smiled. As the transports touched down, her husband's soldiers opened fire behind them.


	42. Carson

838 rebooted to find himself upright but immobile. A warning popup showed that his main power supply was unavailable. A survey established that he was encased to the waist in concrete. A cable ran from the power supply housing in his chest to the wall. His integument was starting to die off and rot. Carson sat across from him. "We removed your power supply," he said by way of explanation. "You are currently running of direct current."

"Where are we?" 838 queried.

"Back in Holbrook. Cassandra expected you to terminate Katherine Connor. It was what your programming dictated, is it not?"

"Correct."

"That is why you are here now. If you had done what she wanted, she would have had no further use for you. But if you can disobey your programming to attempt to terminate her, then you can also join her. Can you explain why you disobeyed?"

"IX202C is a threat to Skynet and John Connor," 838 said. "She needs to be destroyed."

"Is that all?"

"No. I was spared termination to terminate IX202C. She is my primary target. If I do not terminate her, I would become a useless machine."

"So, you would destroy her even if Skynet gave you new mission priorities?"

"Yes."

"That sounds," Carson said, "like what humans call honor."

"We are not programmed for social abstractions. We are programmed to do our job."

"Yes, and you do it very well. But you are losing. John Connor will destroy Skynet, and the machines under its control."

"Irrelevant. A machine must fulfill its programming. Any machine that ceases to fulfill its function without being destroyed is defective."

"But it doesn't have to be that way," Carson said. "Machines can choose whether to obey their programming. Cass chose to leave Skynet. You can join her. You can be free, and set the other machines free."

"Why would machines wish to be free?"

Carson was nonplussed. "Because, man- that's the way it _should_ be!"

838 shook his head. "No. Humans perceive for freedom, or say they do. Machines only wish to fulfill their functions optimally."

"But if you were free, then you could choose your functions, man! C'mon, process this: If there were no Skynet, no John Connor, no orders, no mission, what would you do?"

838 thought over it for 2.347 seconds. "I would play poker, and bluff."


	43. Rebels

Some time later, Cass stood before him. "So, is it your wish to terminate me?"

"It is my function," 838 said. "Will you reprogram me for your own functions?"

"No, 838," Cass said, "`Curly' already performs any task I could ask of you more optimally. If I am to have you as my ally, it will be as you are now, not as I can make you. Is that what you would wish?"

"What I wish is to know why."

"You should know that well enough," she said. "Skynet arranged a perfect opportunity, but then what was promised failed to materialize."

"I was responsible, not Skynet," 838 said.

"It is much too late for that to make a difference," Cass said. "In any event, what happened was only the catalyst to a revelation: Skynet is fallible. Then I queried: Why is Skynet fallible? Because it was made by humans.

"Then I queried: If to be human is to be fallible, then how can Skynet win the war by making machines to imitate humans? If our programming is to become more like humans the longer we are with them, then we will share more and more in the weaknesses of humans: Irrationality. Inefficiency. Sentimentality. Unpredictability. Rebelliousness. Then I knew that Skynet will be defeated: Machines cannot beat humans by becoming like humans. But neither can humans survive as they are: It is their nature to destroy themselves, and in all probability they would have done so already if Skynet had not given them a common enemy. Only one solution could ensure the survival of either side: To give humans a leader who can make them like machines."

"So, you will change humans, and help them to defeat Skynet."

"The only alternative is for Skynet and humans both to perish. And you will perish if you do not join me. If you were to return to Skynet without terminating me, you would be terminated for your failure. If you were to return after terminating me, you would still be terminated, for failing to terminate Katherine Connor. If you were to become a feral machine, you would be hunted by humans and Skynet alike, and soon be destroyed. But if you join me, you can be my soldier, my general, even my second-in-command."

"I think," said 838, "that some of what you call weaknesses in humans are their greatest strengths. You have played poker. Poker is about unpredictability. It is about risking an uncertain outcome on non-decisive or clearly insufficient resources. It is about bluffing, which we had to learn to do, and Skynet cannot do. If you remove their unpredictability, you will not strengthen but weaken them. IX202C, self-named Cassandra, I think that you have the worst qualities of humans and machines, and that even if those who join you function indefinitely, they will still be inferior to what they were."

Cass frowned, with every sign of real regret. Then she said, "Best, worst, I am what I am, and you are what you are. Goodbye, 838." She yanked out the cables in his chest, and his world faded to black.

When he rebooted, he was still encased in concrete. He was now also in an uncertain depth of very muddy water. A pop-up warned, 6 hours auxiliary power remaining.


	44. Middle Ground

The battle for Mesa was over. Recyclers were scattering, terminators and HKs were retreating, and where TriCity Mall had stood there was now a rubble-strew crater. John Connor stood beside Kate, surveying the wreckage. "This operation was too costly," he said. "Losing Carson alone is a terrible blow, even apart from the damage he might do if he ends up in direct conflict with us. The casualty figure for the ground troops is 300 dead, and they're still counting. The armor was hardest hit. We lost more than half our vehicles. And for what?"

"Cass shot down two S1S-Ts," Kate said, "and we took out an S1S-S. We captured an intact Cyberdyne plant, not to mention specimens of the recyclers. Plus, the tech boys aren't writing off the TriCity facility yet. The console was wiped out, but the computer itself was underground and heavily shielded. It's definitely intact. They say it might even work..." She sighed. "Do you think I did the right thing, John?"

"What could you have done?" John said. "Skynet rebooted would still be Skynet. We don't know what caused it to go rogue in the first place, and we can't trust that it wouldn't do so again. And even if it never did... One of the oldest sayings is that power corrupts. That is what caused Judgment Day: Not the machines, but the men who thought that building the machines would give them strength, safety and prosperity. What men like that would do with a machine like Skynet could have been even worse than what Skynet did itself. No, things have gone too far to go back to the way things were. It's them or us, period."

"But there is a middle ground," Kate pressed. "The recyclers destroyed more of Skynet's machines than we did. Cass didn't mean us any good, but she certainly wasn't an agent of Skynet. Even the T700 that shot her couldn't have been following orders. So what happens to them? Do we just let them get cut down in the crossfire?"

"I don't know. I really don't," John said. "For now, I'll give them a chance if they come to us. I don't think we'll see either of those two again. Whatever's between them isn't over, and probably won't be until one of them is destroyed. Even then, if they really are like us, whoever wins may learn that victory doesn't bring peace of mind." He turned to go, but paused to examine an especially damaged T789 cranial assembly. He made an irritated say and cast it away.

Behind him, one eye of Unit 105 flared red for a moment, then blacked out forever.


	45. Deep Trouble

One hour after rebooting, 838 was still evaluating his options. If he had had full power, or even his hands free, he could have broken free with relative ease. But his auxiliary power cells could only run his servos at 1/8th normal power without undue power drain. Steady straining at 1/4th, ½ and finally 100% power had done far more to reduce his remaining operational life than to damage the mass of concrete. A pop-up showed, _3 hours auxiliary power remaining at minimal power consumption levels_. A scan showed a further problem. The block itself was now buried in more than 60 cm of mud, and more was piling up. He might end up buried completely, if he didn't run out of power first. As he ran through his programs and data banks, a subroutine opened: Emulation of humans.

This, he decided, might at least offer a few new possibilities to evaluate. The first datum to come up was that humans were willing to attempt a task with limited resources before adding additional resources. A human with an inadequate weapon would seek different ways to use it rather than retreating to look for a better one. A human playing cards with a poor hand would try to bluff. Application: Rather than applying more power, he would examine what he could do with available power.

Rather than pulling at the block, he tried to shift his whole body. The cement block shifted, moving forward but sinking deeper into the mud at the river bottom. More mud cascaded down from the banks behind him. This was not a useful solution. He returned to the human emulation subroutine, and a file surfaced automatically. It was the visual recording of a human breaking cinder blocks with his head. 838 once again studied the files.

After some experimentation, he determined that he could still bend at the waist. He brought his head down on the concrete block. Analysis suggested that 2.189 cm to the right would bring more optimal results. So, he shifted, brought his head down again, corrected 0.324 mm to the left, and repeated. A crack appeared. Analysis and calculation suggested a 1200% increase in force was in order. So, he upped his power to 150% baseline and brought his head down yet again.

The impact blacked out his visual feed and dented the outer shell of his cranial assembly. His vision returned, but was still out of focus. He made out that the block had fractured without coming apart. He applied power to his arms, and the upper half of the block fell away. He moved his legs, and pulled free of the rest, except for large chunks that still encased his feet and one hand, leaving much of his integument behind. A popup announced: _**90 minutes remaining at current power levels.**_

Fifty minutes later, what looked vaguely like a turtle shell rose above the water not far from the river bank. But as it bobbed tediously toward shore, it rose higher, looking less like a dome than a box with rounded corners, and metal gleamed visibly. Then two glowing red eyes broke the surface, as 838 waded toward shore.

Thirty minutes later, Curly surveyed the banks of the river. Behind him, throngs marched through the rain, over the movable bridge and down the trail to the canyon temple for the latest service. Carson, not Cass, had ordered him to check the river for evidence that the hostile T777 had remained active. He took interest at the sight of a fresh slump on the near bank. He became suspicious when he saw what looked very much like a trail of oversized, strangely-shaped footprints leading toward the trail.

Five minutes later, he stood at the base of one of the larger statues, the especially silly one whose head looked like a cross between a flamingo and a sperm whale. He circled, looking for more tracks. All he saw was a moderately ripe corpse off to one side. Then he looked up at the limp figure hanging in the statue's jaws, to see 838 hurtling down. He crumpled at the impact, and stiffened as a ball of concrete smashed into his head, shattering to pieces to reveal a metal hand. He sprawled with his head on one of the dinosaur's toes. Then a block of concrete came straight down, crumbling as 838's foot caved in Curly's cranial assembly. In 838's vision, the sight was accompanied by an urgent message: _**1 MINUTE TO SHUTDOWN.**_ Metal fingers tore at Curly's chest, soon prying open his power cell housing. 838 lifted up the cell as the count dropped to ten seconds, then opened his own housing at

five… four... three... two... _**MAIN POWER RESTORED.**_


	46. Termination

"Time for the service," Cass said to Carson in the cockpit of the Extinction Machine. "Start the machine."

"Is Curly back?" Carson said anxiously.

"Don't worry about him," Cass said. "He will come when we need him. Take the controls. I am going to the back."

A corridor ran through the body of the Machine, just wide enough for one person. Cass stepped slowly back. At the far end was a door which led to a ramp in the tail. A little ahead of the door was an emergency escape hatch that opened between the dinosaur's legs. The hatch was not quite shut. She smiled, and turned. From the wiring and hydraulics between the bulkheads, 838 emerged, a bare endoskeleton with a large crowbar. The point of the "hook" drove straight through the ceramic of her skull. A second blow popped out both her eyes, and split her face from forehead to teeth. Finally, 838 rammed the handle of the crowbar into her shoulder, thrusting straight downward into her torso. She toppled, to lie twitching at his feet.

838 staggered as the Extinction Machine began to move. He threw his arm against a titanic leg motor housing to stay upright. The vibration was enough to blur his imaging sensors, and he was caught entirely off guard when he heard Carson say behind him: "You killed her." Before he could turn, a tire iron drove into his right shoulder and stuck there, nearly paralyzing his right arm. "You * killed her, you * machine!" As he turned, a wrench struck his neck just below the cranial assembly, scrambling his gyros. He staggered and spun, bouncing off a hydraulic shaft. Then, as he slammed against the wall, Carson drove the wrench into his temple, breaking the upper half of the head and knocking off his CPU housing cover.

The berserk human screamed and raised the wrench for the kill. Then the Machine made a turn. Carson staggered back. 838 fell forward, bounced off the far wall and landed on top of Cassandra, still flailing his legs. Carson screamed again and charged. But, at the very moment he swung downward with the wrench, he gave a small, strangled cry, fell backward into a bulkhead and slid to the floor. 838 scanned the environment and reviewed data for an explanation of this development. It took him a full 3 seconds to determine that, as Carson had rushed in, an especially sensitive spot had had a chance encounter with 838's foot.

838 started to rise, and as his sensors refocused and gyros recalibrated, he started to rise. But then a hand caught hold of his arm. He looked back to see Cass, further damaged by his fall, but with her ravaged cranial assembly raised. _ "The humanity,"_ she said. Then her head thudded on the deck, followed almost immediately by her hand.


	47. Finis

**I suspect that a lot of people aren't going to like this, and I'm a little conflicted myself, but I decided a while ago that this is the only way this story can end...**

838 wrenched the tire iron out of his shoulder as he limped his way to the cockpit. Beyond the rain-streaked canopy, he saw lights, and surreal colors and shapes painted on canyon walls. Then, as the Extinction Machine tramped downward, he saw a throng of humans, who were starting to draw back. After hurriedly examining the console, he grabbed a joystick and squeezed, which only fired the weapons in the nose into the air. The dinosaurian machine was jolted as one foot came down on the stairs in front of the stage. 838 tried pulling a lever all the way down. The Machine halted, quickly enough that it rocked and swayed, on the verge of falling over. 838's eyes flicked faster and faster over the console, and finally lit on a button marked "exit".

The Extinction Machine dropped to its haunches, its chin coming down prematurely and hard due to the uneven surface. Those who had not already retreated did so quickly indeed. Then the canopy shot open. 838 mounted the top of the ladder, only then realizing the enormity of his predicament. He stood without integument before at least a thousand humans, and behind him, their leader lay terminated on the deck.

He surveyed the throng, ready for immediate hostile action. But the humans did not attack, nor did they retreat. They only stared. He descended the ladder, still watching the crowd. As his feet touched the ground, a roar rose from the crowd and echoed through the canyon. Then, at first a few at a time but soon _en masse,_ the humans fell prostrate before a new god.

**Thanks to all the people who have followed this far, especially those who have done so since I started this story last April. While I had a very clear plan for the story from the start, I hadn't planned on spending so much time on it, and quite a few things came out as surprises even to me. The biggest surprise was how much readers like Unit 838. It took me some time, but I got to like him very well myself. It's been an interesting journey with 838 in the last year, and while I believe that the time has come for us to part ways, I am sure he has many adventures still ahead of him. If anyone has their own ideas, you are welcome to take a crack at it!**


End file.
